


you're not quite here but you're not quite gone

by restitched (beingothrwrldly)



Category: Clean Bandit (Band), Years & Years (Band)
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Night Terrors, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-13
Updated: 2015-11-13
Packaged: 2018-05-01 10:45:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 31,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5202914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beingothrwrldly/pseuds/restitched
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Olly is chewing at the inside of his cheek and he's trying not to let Neil in, but Neil knows him well enough to know exactly what he's doing. His palms itch with desperation and he yearns to pull Olly close and tell him it'll be okay, they'll figure this out and they'll get through it.</i>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p><i>Except Olly doesn't remember him and how on earth can he prove himself to someone he's just now met? </i>You knew all my secrets yesterday,<i> Neil wants to say. </i>You knew who I was yesterday.<i></i></p><p> </p><p>  <i>"My name is Neil," Neil says finally, because what better place to start than the beginning? "We met in...we met in October."</i></p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Or, Olly gets amnesia, and Neil doesn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you're not quite here but you're not quite gone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fiddleyoumust](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiddleyoumust/gifts).



> TO MY BELOVED FRIEND JULIA! I wanted to write all of your prompts and had THE HARDEST TIME choosing just one. I was really glad when I saw that you wanted "origin story fic with some angst," because that fit really well with the prompt I chose, "fic where either of them lose their memory".
> 
> I probably kind of asked for this when I said, "If anybody asks for amnesia I would L O V E to write that." I guess we should probably both learn to be careful what we wish for.
> 
> I HOPE YOU LIKE IT!!!! I've been told that you're a fan of angst.
> 
> A massive thank you to everyone who helped me with this story - to Erin and Alison and Cass, your assistance and encouragement was so so helpful and appreciated. And to [nagatha_christie](http://archiveofourown.org/users/nagatha_christie/pseuds/nagatha_christie), who spent LITERAL HOURS helping to fix grammar and punctuation and sentence structure and add more feelings, I just can't express enough thanks. And to Vae for the britpick and also the classical-music-pick!!! YOU ARE ALL MY FAVORITES, THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME AND SUFFERING. 
> 
> Huge thank you to Carolina, who was so so helpful in plotting out this fic with me on the ride back from Washington DC. Thank you for planting all of the angstiest seeds and encouraging me to create this monster!! 
> 
> Huge thank you to Tasha for the moral support and for putting up with my screenshots and angst for the last six weeks, and for helping me work through some plot issues with encouraging words like, "I THINK I HATE YOU HMM." 
> 
> The title comes from Forget Me Not by Marianas Trench; this is based in canon but I've definitely messed around with the timeline to make it fit the story. I've tagged for it but there are some PTSD and night terrors within this story, so please proceed with caution. Also a little bit of angst. Any remaining mistakes are mine.
> 
> If you're Neil or Olly or anyone who knows Neil or Olly, P L E A S E go away. Honestly. Get out. THIS IS FICTION. None of this is true.
> 
> I wanted this author's note to just be the smiling devil's face emoji a hundred times but I couldn't figure out how to insert an image, so maybe i should just settle for "I'm sorry for what I'm about to do to your feelings."

Later, under the hectic and nauseating pulse of too-bright fluorescent hospital lights, Neil will remember jagged bits of the seconds surrounding the one in which his phone had gone off.

First, and perhaps most troubling in hindsight, is that Olly had been late for dinner.

When his phone had gone off, everything seemed fine. The screen lit up with Olly's name and it was Olly's smile in the photo but when the voice on the other end said, "Neil," it was jarring and unfamiliar because it was most definitely not Olly.

Second, Olly's mum had called Neil from Olly's phone.

"Neil," Vicki said again because Neil hadn't said anything. _Life changes in an instant,_ he read for the third time before setting the book face down on the table; he'd read the words too many times, anyway. Later, they feel foreboding and he can't forget them.

Later, he'll remember the way the wax had dripped from the candles he'd lit, down to the candleholders. He'll remember the way the spine of his book was cracked and how it had lain nearly flat on the table. He'll remember how the corner of the book had pushed his fork askew, though his plate had been empty anyway.

Olly had been running late, after all. Dinner had been warming in the oven.

Neil wasn't overly worried because he'd heard from Olly. When Olly left the rehearsal space, he sent Neil three messages. _finally finally leaving im on my way to u_ , and then _hope u missed me_ , and then eleven kissing faces. Neil hadn't worried much but now Vicki is on the line and Olly is late for dinner.

And then Vicki said, "Neil, there's been an accident." She sounded breathless, and all of a sudden that was exactly the way Neil felt. _Life changes in an instant._ "Will you come here?"

 _But where's here_ , Neil thinks, but he's already looking for his shoes. _Life changes in an instant,_ he thinks as he pulls them on. _The ordinary instant._ He turns back to put out the candles, and halfway to the door he realises he'd forgotten a jacket but he doesn't go back again.

 

When Neil arrives at the hospital, he is met at the door by Emre. Emre drops the end of his cigarette and snuffs it out with his toe, pushes himself away from the wall and falls into step with Neil when Neil walks past him. 

The details are stark and unforgiving. Neil sits next to Vicki in the waiting room as she tells him what happened. The taxi Olly had taken from the studio had been hit by a car that had run a red light; Emre had come upon it minutes later and called for help. Blessedly, Olly's only physical injuries are thirteen stitches to a cut on his head and a bit of bruising to his shoulder. The driver had walked away with no injuries. "But he's not," Vicki says, and she trails off and looks at Emre for a long time.

Maybe it only _feels_ like a long time. Neil watches them and says, "He's not what? Can I see him?"

"Neil," Vicki says, and suddenly her voice sounds too soft, too gentle. It was ages ago, hours, maybe, or has it been days? Neil has lost all concept of time and everything begins to speed up to a breakneck pace when the doctor speaks with them.

The details are stark and unforgiving.

The doctor begins by saying that Olly was awake long enough to answer a few questions. "He knows his name, his birthday," he says, looking down at a folder filled with papers. There's a pause before he continues, "But he believes it's the twenty-third of June."

 _The twenty-third of June,_ Neil thinks. It doesn't make sense straight away.

"It's July," Neil says. "Why's he think it's June?"

The doctor looks up at him for a long time. "It's called retrograde amnesia," he says softly, with the faintest tinge of sympathy in his voice. "He thinks it's the twenty-third of June, 2014."

It hits Neil slowly, at first, and then suddenly a wave of understanding envelops him and Neil feels like he's going to be sick. 

"That was a year ago," Neil says, more to himself than anyone in the room, and the doctor glances up at him, lightning-quick, before he looks back down at his papers.

A hand settles on Neil's shoulder while the doctor keeps talking, but he's finding it difficult to focus as a bright, sharp ringing in his ears gets louder. "He's lost an entire year," he says again, and he sits up straighter and looks at Vicki, then at Emre. "He's gone back to June?" Their eyes are identically sympathetic, heartbreak painted across their cheekbones. Neil has never had a panic attack but he imagines he might well be having one right now, with how fast his heart is racing.

"We think it's likely temporary, a side effect of the head trauma," the doctor says. "But the truth is that we just don't know the extent of the damage."

The ringing in Neil's ears just gets louder as he hears _trauma_ and _damage_ and _likely temporary_ , over and over and over again. He has to remind himself to breathe, long and even, in and out, in and out, in.

And out.

 

Somehow, later, Neil finds himself at Olly's flat to pack some clothes.

It's perhaps later that evening or the following day, he's still not sure; the doctor's words are echoing through his mind as if they've been shouted into a canyon. _Retrograde amnesia_ , they say over and over again, _amnesia, amnesia, amnesia_. The echo is endless.

This is the stuff of stories, he thinks. These things happen on the programs he's caught when he's been at home sick or too tired on tour, flipping through the channels while he can't sleep. He thinks about those programs while looking through Olly's closet for a jumper that had once lived in _his_ closet, because finding a jumper that Olly's nicked from him is far less terrifying than thinking about how all of Olly's memories from the last twelve months have suddenly disappeared.

Olly's room begins to spin and Neil has to sit down.

He looks around the room, at walls with a string of haphazardly-strung Christmas bulbs hanging above the bed. The wall beside his nightstand is covered with photos, of Olly with Emre and Mikey, Olly with Stewie. Selfies and photos taken by friends. The overwhelming majority, however, are photos of Olly with Neil.

"It would be best," the doctor had said, "if, at the start, he was not significantly overwhelmed by memories he doesn't currently have access to."

It's funny, Neil thinks, the way they're speaking as if Olly has lost a key to a filing cabinet. It's got to be funny somehow, because otherwise it is absolutely and wholly devastating.

They spend most of their nights together at Neil's flat, and being in Olly's room without Olly feels wrong. Neil's not seen the photos lately, and there are dozens of new ones since he'd been here last, snapshots of the time that's passed since last October covering the wall like a new coat of paint. There's a photo of the two of them from the night Neil had met Olly's James - that's what Neil calls him, even now, and even Olly has taken to calling him _my James_ \- when James had been too short with Neil and Neil had learned, later, about the last guy Olly had brought around.

There's one of Neil with Stewie, one they'd taken in the car as they'd arrived at Neil's family's house on their first holiday in Paris. One of Neil with Olly's mum at Christmas and one of them both with Maya in the spring; there's a copy of their photobooth pictures from Shoreditch House, the night Neil had told Olly he thought of him always, every minute, every second of the day.

Emre had stepped outside for another cigarette when the doctor was called into surgery. Neil never smokes but he'd stepped outside too, and for a long time they stood side by side next to the door until Neil finally worked up the nerve to say, "He thinks it's 2014."

It wasn't a question. Emre didn't answer straight away. When he did, it was barely loud enough for Neil to hear.

"A lot's happened since last year," he said, as if Neil didn't already know that. Emre exhaled a puff of smoke before looking at Neil. He looked as though he wanted to say more but he didn't, just watched him unceasingly until Neil felt dizzy.

And overwhelmed, Neil thought, as Emre turned and walked back inside. Neil felt overwhelmed. Utterly and completely overwhelmed, consumed with heartache that's somehow equal parts numbing and excruciating.

Sophie steps into the doorway as he's unpinning the photos, and when she says, "Do you need some help, love?" Neil has no idea how to reply. She walks in and stands a bit away and Neil looks at the photos he's taken down.

"The doctors have said," he starts, and then he pauses because he feels, quite honestly, at a loss for words. "I can't believe this is happening," is what he says instead. Sophie presses her hand between his shoulderblades and Neil takes a deep breath. "They said he shouldn't be overwhelmed," Neil says quietly, and he takes another photo down. "I reckon these would be rather overwhelming."

Sophie is quiet for a moment and then she says, "Let me find you a box."

They wind up leaving a few photos up, but the wall looks empty even still. Neil realises that, to Olly, this will look normal. He wants to throw up. 

"Have you spoken with Emre?" Neil asks as he takes a few more things off the shelves - letters he remembers writing, dried roses from Valentine's Day, photo albums he can't bear to flip through.

"Yes," Sophie says. She's sitting on the edge of Olly's bed, and Neil can't bear to look at her. "We'll help him remember," she says. "There's no way he could forget you forever."

Neil wishes he could believe her.

 

When Neil arrives back at the hospital, Olly's mum has disappeared from the waiting area. He sends a text asking if she's gone to the cafeteria or back home for the evening, and she texts back a room number and tells him to come in. Neil finds the room without much trouble, but he stands outside the door for ages, trying to work up the nerve to go inside.

Olly is sitting up in bed, big pillows behind his head and a bandage covering much of his forehead. He looks tired but familiar, bruised but okay. Neil clears his throat and Olly looks over at him, and his lack of reaction is easily the most painful part of this disaster.

"Neil," Vicki says, and she looks at Olly. "Look who's here."

Neil takes a couple of steps towards the bed as Vicki stands up, and before he can say anything, she's taken the bag from him and says, "Here, sit down."

"I don't think," Neil says, at the same time Olly says, "Mum, no, he doesn't — " but Vicki just waves them both off and tells them she's going to speak with a doctor, and then she's gone.

The ringing in his ears is back, Neil realises, as Olly looks up at him. He looks exactly, precisely, the way Neil remembers he looked when they'd met for the first time, for real. The only difference is that now his hair is blond. 

"Hello," Neil says carefully. He doesn't sit down.

"Hi," Olly says, and his voice is small but firm. Neil crosses his arms over his chest and wishes he could just disappear. This is actually a nightmare. "I...I know this is a bit...it's fucked, yeah? It's seriously fucked. But you don't have to—"

"I want to," Neil says before he can even think about speaking, and both he and Olly seem to be the same amount of surprised that he's said anything at all. "I'm—" He looks back towards the door and then to Olly. "What have they..."

He's got to ask, he knows that. Making assumptions is dangerous, but Neil's pretty sure he's never wanted to know an answer less than the answer to _what have they told you?_

But it turns out it doesn't make much of a difference, when Olly says, "I don't know who you are," before he has a chance to finish his own question. 

Olly is chewing at the inside of his cheek and he's trying not to let Neil in, but Neil knows him well enough to know exactly what he's doing. His palms itch with desperation and he yearns to pull Olly close and tell him it'll be okay, they'll figure this out and they'll get through it.

Except Olly doesn't remember him and how on earth can he prove himself to someone he's just now met? _You knew all my secrets yesterday,_ Neil wants to say. _You knew who I was yesterday._

"My name is Neil," Neil says finally, because what better place to start than the beginning? "We met in...we met in October." His voice cracks on _October_ , and he clears his throat. "I—we took, my band, we took you out on tour."

"I don't want—" Olly shakes his head and Neil catches the shine in his eyes as Olly swipes the back of his hand across his cheek. "Please don't. Okay, just. Please don't. _Please._ "

"Maybe I'll let you sleep," Neil says, and Olly nods quickly. "Maybe—I'll come back in the morning when, when you've had a chance to—to rest." _Maybe you'll remember me then,_ he thinks. Maybe not.

"Okay," Olly says. "Thank you for bringing my things."

"Of course," Neil says. He turns towards the door again, but Vicki's not come back yet, and he's not sure if he should wait for her or just get the fuck out.

"You don't have to," Olly says again, softer, and Neil looks at him. "Please don't feel like you have to."

The distance to Olly's bedside feels like miles, like oceans and galaxies, but Neil covers it in seconds. Olly's eyes are trained on him as Neil sits down next to the bed. They're the same blue that Neil sees in his dreams, when he's awake, in the kitchen when he's making tea and in bed at night, over Facetime and Skype, across thousands of miles and timezones. 

"I don't feel like I have to," Neil says softly. He curls his hands into fists, presses his knuckles into the tops of his thighs. "I never feel like I have to."

Olly watches him for a long time, and Neil holds his breath. "You said you're Neil?" Olly finally says.

Neil's never been one to agonise over heartbreak, never really dwells on what's gone wrong in his past relationships. He's always tried to believe that whatever will be, will be; the minute he'd met Olly it felt immediately as if this would be. It felt settled and calm and comfortable, as if this was what would be. This was home.

Two weeks before their first big anniversary, Olly was sitting on the edge of Neil's kitchen counter, swinging his feet and watching as Neil was getting the tea ready. "We've got to do something big for six months, this is a _massive_ accomplishment," he said as Neil reached past him for the sugar dish. Olly snagged him by the shirtsleeve and pulled him in between his knees, his eyes sparkling. "Can you believe it, is that stupid? It's a bit stupid."

"Six months isn't _stupid_ ," Neil said, one hand braced on the countertop next to Olly's hip and the other hand curled loose and warm around the side of Olly's thigh. Olly smelled of ivory soap and honey, a scent that was overwhelmingly _Olly_ , sweet and pure. Sometimes, on long flights when Neil lost track of the days and times, he would close his eyes and think of the way he smelled, of the warmth of Olly's skin, the way he whispered _I love you_ in the mornings before he said _good morning_. "It's quite impressive, actually, why're you so moody about it?"

" _I'm_ moody," Olly muttered, pouting, while he hooked his arm around Neil's neck and kissed him on the curve of his jaw, just beneath his ear. " _You're_ moody."

"A whole six months of moods," Neil said, gently mocking, and he marveled over how they were only days away from it, how much they've loved already in just six months. "Imagine that."

So Neil is a bit stunned, honestly, by the devastating sharpness of the way his heart splits in two while Olly recommits his name to memory, three months away from their first anniversary.

"You look like a Neil," Olly says, and Neil laughs suddenly.

"Neil is my middle name," he says while Olly smiles, cautious. "But I've been told it suits me." _You've told me that,_ he thinks. _You have_.

"What's your surname?" Olly asks. He leans back into the pillows and his eyelids look heavy, but he doesn't ask Neil to leave and Neil doesn't want to.

"Amin-Smith," Neil says, "it's like, it's hyphenated."

"That sounds quite posh," Olly says. He blinks sleepily at Neil. "What's your first name?"

Neil smiles, in spite of the entire situation. This horrible, nightmarish situation. "Milan," he says, and Olly smiles widely and closes his eyes. It's coming, Neil thinks; he knows that look.

"Milaaaan," Olly drawls, dragging it out endlessly. "No, I don't believe you. Can I call you Milan rather than Neil?"

"Absolutely not," Neil says. Olly opens his eyes and Neil's heart swells a bit. "Only my mum calls me Milan, usually when I get in trouble."

"You look like you could be trouble," Olly says. He's smiling and Neil's heart is breaking. "Is that your name, really? Honest to god?"

"Honest to god," Neil says, and a nurse comes in then. Neil scoots his chair back to make room while she has Olly sit up to take a pill. When she leaves Neil leans forward a little. "You should get some rest," he says softly, and Olly frowns at him and winces.

"But I feel like there's so much to learn about you," Olly says, his voice nearly a whisper.

"We've got ages," Neil says. Olly's blinking is getting slower. "You've got to get some rest, you look knackered."

"I feel knackered," Olly says. He blinks twice, three times, and smiles a sleepy smile at Neil. "Knackered. What a word."

"I'll come back tomorrow, if you'd like," Neil says carefully. He stands up and Olly nods slowly. There are walls between them, Neil can tell, but he pretends not to notice and straightens his shoulders.

"I don't want to be," Olly starts, and before Neil can stop himself he's put his hand on the side of Olly's neck and has leaned down and kissed his forehead, on the spot where the bandages don't cover. Olly goes very still, barely breathing, and Neil bites his lip and pulls back. "I don't want to be an imposition," Olly whispers.

Neil shakes his head. "You aren't," he whispers back. He stands up straight and studies his feet, pretends to fiddle with the cuffs of his shirt.

"It seems like you were important to me," Olly whispers. "Was I important to you?"

The door opens; Vicki walks in with two cups of tea and Neil hears her inhale and say, "Oh."

Olly's eyes are heavy again, and he doesn't seem to recall asking a question, so Neil touches his shoulder and says, "I'll see you in the morning. I'll come back in the morning."

"Mmm, okay," Olly sighs and smiles, closes his eyes before Neil turns away.

Vicki's eyes are full of sorrow and Neil puts his hand on her shoulder and squeezes softly as he walks by. "I'll see you in the morning," he says, but his voice breaks on all the words. He leaves the room and doesn't stop walking until he gets outside.

The air is cool for July, misty and light; Neil leans against the wall beside the door and tries to catch his breath. _Was I important to you?_ he hears over and over, as his eyes burn with tears. _Was I important to you?_

Neil manages to make it inside his flat before he breaks down. He leans against the door and closes his eyes - _was I important to you?_ , he hears as he presses the heels of his hands to his eyes, a question too big and too impossible to even imagine how it could ever be answered.

 _olls had an accident_ he types out with shaking hands. He sends it in a group text, to Maya and Grace and Rupert. It hadn't occurred to him, earlier and stuck in the haze of shock, to say anything to any of them, but the silence of his flat is deafening and he's not sure what to do next. _hes ok but doesnt rmbr me_ , and then as an afterthought he sends _????_ , and it hits him with the suddenness of an avalanche that his entire world has come crashing down around him.

 

Rupert arrives in less than an hour's time with a paper bag full of takeaway; Neil responds by immediately breaking down in tears. The food winds up next to the door, forgotten, as Rupert guides him in to sit down on the couch.

Rupert starts a kettle for tea while Neil tries to catch his breath. Olly's jumper is tossed across the back of the couch and one of his journals is sat on the coffee table, face down next to an uncapped pen. There's a framed photo of them sat on the corner of the mantle, the first memento Neil had unpacked from the boxes that still sit around the room.

"Has he lost everything?" Rupert asks, voice soft and gentle, as he sits beside Neil and hands him a warm mug of tea.

Neil shakes his head when his throat begins to ache too much to speak. He coughs once, rough. 

"No," he says carefully as his vision starts to go blurry again. "Only me, it seems."

"Would you like to talk about it?" Rupert asks. 

"No," Neil says again. "I most definitely do not."

They turn on the telly but Neil can't focus on any of the programs and after the end of X Factor, Neil tells Rupert he's going to bed. Rupert hovers a bit, makes sure Neil is settled, and he offers to read him a bedtime story which makes Neil laugh and then gives him a long hug which makes Neil cry. By the time he's in bed with the lights out he feels hollow and rattled, exhausted with an ache that reaches the center of his bones, the knobs of his joints, the sharp edges of his heart.

Neil is on the left side of the bed out of habit, his side of the bed; Olly's side, of course, is just cool sheets and negative space. Neil presses his palm to the fabric and wonders, dream-hazy, how he's only been in this flat for three weeks and Olly's already carved a spot in all of the most intimate ways - laundry mixed in with Neil's, his glasses on top of the dresser, a toothbrush in the holder on the sink. His old keyboard sits on top of the desk in the corner. Olly is here even when he's not, and Neil hugs Olly's pillow and buries his face in the fabric. 

The soft strains of Schubert drift in from the living room and Neil falls asleep without knowing. When he opens his eyes it's suddenly morning; sun streams too bright in the window where the curtains hadn't been drawn shut, and he wonders if he'd even slept at all.

 

Rupert drops him off at the hospital the next morning. Neil wears sunglasses inside and feels a bit too much like a snooty rockstar, but his eyes are burning with every blink, and every bit of light feels like he's being stabbed.

Vicki is sitting outside Olly's room with her chin in her hand, staring down the opposite end of the hall. She doesn't notice Neil until he sits in the chair beside her, and she looks over at him and squeezes his knee. 

"You look horrendous," she says, softly. It's a bit harsh but not entirely inaccurate. Neil feels horrendous.

"How is he?" Neil is aching to go in, but he's dreading the look in Olly's eyes; he pictures Olly studying him and trying to figure out his name and wants to run far away from the hospital, disappear into the countryside.

Vicki doesn't answer right away, which makes Neil's heart race a bit faster. "He's more lucid," she says. "More frustrated. They're getting him ready to go home, Mikey's bringing him home today."

"Already," Neil says, thinking of the photos he'd taken down from Olly's wall, the box of memories tucked in the back of Sophie's closet. He looks at Vicki and smiles a little. "Will you be staying in town for a bit, then?"

"No, no," she says. "Just the rest of today, then off home to fret from afar."

"A mother's job is never done," Neil says, thinking of his own mum. He'd spoken to her a bit last night, before Rupert had turned up; she'd gotten a message from Maya, she said, and did Neil need her to take the train in? He told her no, no, it was alright; just a few bumps and bruises, really, nothing to uproot her life for. He hadn't mentioned the memories because he's honestly not sure how.

"No, I don't suppose it is," Vicki says softly. She's looking past Neil, towards Olly's door, and then she lets out a soft sigh. "I know this is hard," she finally says. "I know...I know how much he means to you." 

Neil has to look down at his hands when Vicki looks at him, her eyes shining bright with tears. She's told him, before, what he's done for Olly. How much brighter Olly's smile is, the way he lights up when she asks him about Neil. He'd had flowers delivered to her house once, while Olly was there for a long weekend. Olly had come home with them and beamed when he'd said, "My mum is officially _obsessed_ with you."

"I truly don't know..." Neil frowns and shakes his head. "I don't know where I belong. He means..." He pauses and bites his bottom lip, laces his hands together in his lap. "Everything. He means everything, I don't know what to do. How to fix this, how to fix him." _How to fix us,_ he thinks. _How to rebuild us._ If he can. How to be whole without Olly to complete him. He doesn't say any of that out loud.

"They say it could come back on its own," Vicki says. She puts her hand over his. "Maybe he just needs a bit of reminding."

Sophie and Mikey walk up, then, and Mikey hugs Neil straight away. "Hey, hi," he says, and it's so comforting Neil feels as if he might cry. "How've you been, are you alright?"

Neil hates the question the more people ask, but he nods and says, "I'm alright, how're you?" He stands up and hugs Sophie, and she kisses his temple and squeezes the back of his neck.

"Ready to play nurse," Mikey says. He's smiling pleasantly, forever the optimist. "I'm looking forward to it! I like tending to the sickly, the injured."

"You'll have to ask him about all the dead birds he rescued as a child," Sophie says with a roll of her eyes. Mikey seems affronted but it's difficult to tell, with the way it's drenched in fondness.

The doctors come out of Olly's room and tell them he's been cleared, and Neil hangs back while Mikey and Sophie go in, then Vicki. Mikey is announcing jovially that he'll be taking care of Olly and that he's even bought him a bell to ring; Olly laughs, and from the hallway Neil almost thinks he sounds normal. Maybe it's all over, he thinks. Maybe he's woken up and everything's back to the way it was.

"And Neil's waiting, too," he hears Mikey say, and his heart stops for a second while everything goes quiet.

It feels like forever before Olly says, carefully, "The guy from last night." Neil could convince himself it sounds like Olly, like his Olly, but then Mikey says, "Was he here last night?"

Vicki probably nods, Neil imagines she does, but he can't hear a nod and Olly says, "I don't know, I think so, he's quite tall?" He sounds closed-off and cautious, and Neil walks down the hall to the elevator before he can overhear anything else.

He thinks about leaving but can't bring himself to actually call for a taxi, so he sends a message to Mikey that he's gone outside for some air so Olly doesn't feel too overwhelmed. He sits on the bench beside the door, and by the time they come downstairs, he's nearly caught his breath again.

Olly is walking with his arm linked with Sophie's, and he sees Neil straight away. Neil sits up and they make eye contact that feels familiar, but Olly studies him for too long and Neil has to look away. 

"Hi, Neil," Sophie says pointedly.

Neil can feel Olly watching him and he counts to three, then five, then ten before looking up. He smiles but it's empty, meaningless; he feels as if years have passed since yesterday. Decades, centuries. It's as if the world has begun to spin backwards and everyone's learning to adjust but him.

A day ago, he thinks, everything was normal. A day ago, Olly would have recognised his face.

"Did you drive, Neil?" Mikey asks.

"No, I." Neil glances at Olly and then tries to focus on Mikey. It won't cause as much damage, he thinks, if he doesn't look directly at the sun. "I got a ride."

"You'll ride with me, then," Mikey says. "Soph, you'll go with Vicki?"

Neil's head begins spinning as Sophie nods and Olly looks at Mikey. "I'll ride with you as well?" he asks, his voice small, and Neil feels dizzy.

He takes the backseat so Olly can sit in the front, and Neil finds himself studying Olly's profile while Mikey drives them home. The graceful line of his neck, the sharp angle of his jawline, the delicate skin behind his ear. 

"Do you live with us?" Olly asks suddenly, and he looks back at Neil with his devastating eyes.

"I," Neil starts, nearly rendered speechless. "No. No, I."

"I thought maybe..." Olly frowns and faces forward again. Neil wants to curl his hand around Olly's arm and kiss his temple, whisper _this will be okay_ except he's not even sure he believes that. "I wasn't sure."

"Neil has a lovely flat," Mikey says. His voice is strong and Neil is silently and eternally grateful for Mikey in this instant. "Beautiful place, really." He leaves out the part where they had dinner together last week, the part where Olly had opened the door with the cheekiest grin when Mikey and Sophie had arrived with a bottle of champagne.

Neil had asked Olly to move in, just before they'd knocked at the door. It had taken weeks to work up the courage, dozens of late night _what if_ s sent to Maya and Rupert and his mum and dad. "You've gone mad," Olly said, but his eyes were wild with happiness and his smile looked as if it could've split his face in two.

Mikey and Sophie had knocked then, and Olly kissed Neil and went to answer the door, but left him hanging through a lovely dinner. They drank too much champagne and Mikey and Sophie left just after midnight, tangled up in giggles and each other as they walked down the sidewalk. Neil brushed his teeth and crawled into bed, exhausted and punch drunk, and he'd no sooner curled up against Olly's back when Olly rolled over to face him. He'd wrapped his arms around Neil's waist and whispered, "Yes," into the hollow of Neil's throat.

Neil swallows hard and looks out the window; the sky is cloudy and it looks like rain.

 

Vicki leaves early in the afternoon for home, hugging Olly for a tearful, too-long moment before kissing his cheek and letting him go. She hugs Mikey too, and Sophie, and then she hugs Neil and he feels as if he's going to burst. 

"I'll speak with you soon, love," she whispers, and then she kisses his cheek, too.

When she leaves, Mikey says he's going to get things ready for lunch. Olly is studying Neil with a puzzled look on his face. Neil feels like he should explain, but then Olly says, "I'm going to go lay down for a bit, um." He looks at Neil again, quicker than a snapshot, and then down at his hands.

Mikey and Sophie disappear into the kitchen before Neil can give them a desperate look, and suddenly it's just the two of them. It's awkward and tense and unfamiliar, and Neil feels outside of his body.

"I should, ah," Neil says finally, clearing his throat. "I should probably go, anyway."

Olly's watching him again and then, out of nowhere, Neil decides to say, "Do you need," at the same time Olly asks, "Do you—?"

"Sorry," Neil says with a little laugh. "Sorry, what?"

"What were you going to—" Olly says at the same time, and he smiles and scrunches his nose up. It's the most Olly thing he's done all day and Neil shivers and feels the stunning ache of heartbreak in his chest. His palms are itching for Olly, his muscles ache for Olly, he feels completely incomplete.

"You go," Olly says carefully.

"I was just wondering if you needed anything," Neil says. _Like me,_ he thinks, _maybe you feel like you might need me?_

Olly is quiet for a moment while Neil holds his breath and then he says, "If you'd like, I..." and gestures to his bag. Neil picks it up and follows Olly down the hall, feeling a bit too desperate, but he pushes it away and stands near the door while Olly takes everything in.

Neil glances around to see if anything's been left behind - a strip of photos from a photobooth, a bundle of dried wildflowers, a post-it note - but he doesn't see anything straight away and Olly doesn't seem to notice anything unusual. 

And then, after a moment, something catches Olly's eye. He rubs the back of his neck and laughs a little, taking in his reflection in the mirror across the room. "I've always wanted to be a platinum blond," he says, meeting Neil's eyes in the mirror.

Neil smiles and says, "It suits you," before he can stop himself. It's as if he can pretend everything is fine, really; everything is normal. Everything is fine.

Olly's smile fades a little and then he turns to Neil. He's wringing his hands and he looks lost and hopeless and young, a too-young mind stuck in Olly's body. "When?" It's a question, simple and unassuming, but it sounds heavy and Neil regrets saying anything at all.

"You should rest," Neil says softly.

"I'll be resting forever if you say that every time," Olly says, shaking his head.

"I don't want to overwhelm you," Neil says. "It...it's so complicated."

Olly walks over and puts his hand on Neil's forearm. He feels soft, light as a ghost, and Neil looks up and meets his eyes. "I just need to know what I meant to you," he says, barely a whisper.

Neil has no idea how to respond; he doesn't say a word for the longest time and Olly just waits, taking shallow breaths. There's a knock at the doorframe behind him and Mikey says, "Ah, I've got...food is done."

Olly doesn't look away, but he says, "Thank you, I...we'll just be a minute."

Neil waits until he hears murmured conversation from the kitchen and then he says, "I can't overwhelm you."

"I meant something, right?" Olly sounds desperate, his eyes pleading with Neil, saying _please please please_. "Did I mean something to you? Please."

Neil exhales. "Everything," he whispers. "It's so complicated, Olls, it's so complicated."

"Could we get together, maybe?" Olly's voice is shaking a little, and the way he's pressing his teeth into his bottom lip, Neil knows he's trying not to cry. "Like. Maybe we could have a coffee, do you drink coffee?"

Neil thinks of Sunday morning, last Sunday morning. Just days ago. Olly had woken him early with soft bites across his collarbone, nosing at his chin and whispering, "Mooorning, babe."

"Mmm, hiii," Neil whispered, and Olly grinned against his skin.

"Hiii. I've made you coffee." A mug sat, steaming, on Neil's bedside table.

"With milk?" Neil whispered, but the coffee was already forgotten as Olly hooked his thumbs into the waistband of Neil's boxers, kissing a trail down his chest and nipping softly at Neil's hipbone.

"Mmhmm," he hummed against Neil's skin. It sounded like music.

 _You know how I like my coffee,_ Neil wants to say, but instead he just nods. "Yes," he says, careful. "I like coffee."

"Can I have your number," Olly says. It's funny, Neil thinks, the way every word Olly says can hurt more than the last. "I have it, yeah?" He sounds a bit sheepish, but Neil just nods. 

"I'll call you in the morning," Olly says, and he squeezes Neil's arm before letting his hand fall down to his side. "I'll call."

Neil takes the bus home. It starts to rain as soon as the doors open at his stop.

 

The first thing Neil sees the next morning is a text from Mikey.

 _Officially taking a break._ it says. _Just for a couple wks!! Nothing to worry abt._ Neil has to laugh.

He calls Mikey after he's made a cup of tea. Mikey tells him that, while it had taken a couple of hours, they'd convinced Olly over dinner that a break would be best. "I'm surprised he agreed to that," Neil says. The mug, he realises, is one of Olly's mugs.

"He's probably writing emotional ballads about us as we speak," Mikey says, laughing. "He'll be fine."

There's a bit of a lull and then Mikey says, softer, "He asked about you." It's simple, the way he phrases it, but the words feel heavy and foreboding. Neil doesn't know what to say, or if he wants to say anything, but Mikey continues anyway. "Your name is in his phone. He didn't remember..."

The pause feels endless. When Mikey continues, it's on a different thought. "I'm not sure how much to tell him, I told him he should speak with you. I hope that's alright."

"Of course it's alright," Neil says immediately. _Tell him to speak with me, or write to me, or come see me, or never leave my side._ He doesn't say any of it and after a bit of small talk, Mikey tells him he'll keep him updated and they hang up.

Neil takes his time getting dressed and showered, spending long enough in the shower that the water goes lukewarm by the time he turns off the faucet. He's toweling off when he notices the heart in the fog that's formed over the corner of the mirror, _luv u_ in Olly's slanted handwriting underneath it. It's faded, days old; Neil wonders when Olly had done it and how often he'd missed seeing it. He takes a photo and posts it to Instagram with the caption _tied to the shifting ground like it always was_. He deletes it almost immediately; it makes his stomach turn to know it's already been screencapped and has likely wound up on Tumblr, on Twitter, on Instagram. He feels stupid for posting it at all, but his heart is screaming too loud for his head to think rationally. He feels as if he's drowning.

Instead, Neil posts the same photo to his personal account, adding two blue hearts to the end of the caption. It doesn't occur to him that Olly will be able to see this one too, part of that small and safe audience Neil trusts with these moments, but then he imagines that this could trigger whatever's locking up his memories, and Neil can't bear to delete it.

Olly sends him a message just before lunch, _hi i hope this is ok_. Neil has the telly on, but he's not paying a bit of attention to it. He studies the message for a long time before writing back.

 _always ok_ , he says. _how are u feeling today?_

The ellipses appear on the screen forever, and Neil stares at them until they're burned into his eyes. _i saw ur pic_ , is all he's written, and Neil waits and waits but nothing more ever comes through.

And Neil feels like he's about to burst, with everything he wants to send back. _Do you remember writing that_ , or _when did you write that_ , or _were we just a figment of my imagination because these memories are way too vivid for me so maybe they're not real after all?_ He closes his eyes and breathes deep through his nose to try to stop his heart from racing so fast; when he opens his eyes again, Olly's written, _do u hav 2 accts?_

 _private and public yeah_ , Neil says. _sometimes its all just too much u know?_ Before Olly can reply, Neil sends, _do u want to get togethr today?_

It takes a few minutes but Olly sends back, _is that a good idea?_ Then he says, _ur name is in my contacts._

 _we speak pretty frequently_ , Neil says. _its prob easier than rememberng my number._ He feels stupid as soon as he sends it. Remembering his number. Brilliant.

 _lol i mean there r like hearts next to ur name_ Olly says, then, _like ur rlyyy in my contacts_.

Neil's seen the hearts; he remembers when Olly had added them, sat in Kensington Garden on a sunny afternoon. It had been eleven days since they'd last seen each other; Olly was half in his lap with his elbow resting on Neil's calf, his shoulder tucked against Neil's side with Neil's arm around his shoulders. "Look at this," Olly said, giggling exhaustedly. His voice was hoarse, dark circles under his eyes, but once they'd come offstage and he'd seen Neil, he'd been surrounded by happy energy. He turned his phone so Neil could see, and Neil laughed out loud.

"I can't believe you've changed me from _the bae_ ," he said. Olly turned his face against Neil's shoulder, laughing helplessly. "Is this a joke to you?" _The bae_ had been replaced with his name, surrounded by pink sparkly hearts, three on each side.

"It's the way I'm feeling _right_ now," Olly said, pressing a quick kiss to Neil's jaw. "You're still my bae, don't worry about it."

 _its lots of hearts im just saying_ , Olly's added. _mikey thinks i shud sleep today but i dont rly want to_.

 _is that a yes to getting togethr?_ Neil asks.

 _yeah if thats ok_ , Olly says. _do u drive?_

Neil thinks about the night Olly had come to his flat after the gig in Brixton, how he'd had to give Olly instructions on which bus to take to get back because Olly had rarely taken public transport and they lived too far apart to walk. _ill get a taxi n come meet u_ , Neil says.

 _no no no no,_ Olly replies quickly. _tell me the bus # and ill come there_.

Neil sends him the bus route and immediately starts tidying up. He's just started a fresh pot of tea and straightened up the living room, when there's a tentative knock at the door. He checks his reflection in the foyer mirror and opens the door while he's still messing with his hair. 

"Hiya," Neil says. The sleeves of Olly's jumper are too long; he's pulled them down over his hands and curled his hands into fists at his sides. It's intensely endearing. 

"Hi," Olly says carefully. His smile is small but it's there, and Neil opens the door wider for Olly to come inside. 

Neil fights the urge to touch Olly as he walks in and he says, "You found it alright, yeah?"

Olly nods. "I did," he says. He's glancing around, taking everything in, and Neil swallows hard. He wonders for the millionth time how long this will last, and how long it'll be before he stops wondering if _this_ is when Olly will remember him, if _this_ is what triggers his memories, if _this_ is when the nightmare ends.

"I've put on some tea, come in." Neil leads him back to the living room and Olly follows, close but not too close. Neil's put Brahms on low because it doesn't remind him too terribly of the time before the accident - that's the way he thinks of it now, it's uncontrollably _before_ and _after_ , harsh and divided and cruel.

"This is pretty," Olly says, gesturing. "The music, this is really lovely. You—you're a violinist."

Neil ignores the ringing in his ears as best he can as he nods, and he goes to the kitchen and takes down two mugs. 

"Ah, technically, I suppose," he says, focusing on filling the kettle so Olly doesn't see him blushing. When he looks up again, Olly is smiling widely at him. "Why, do—did you remember that?"

Olly's smile fades as he shakes his head. "Oh, um. No," he says. "No. Mikey just—he told me you've won awards. He said you've been playing for ages."

Neil feels a sharp twinge in his chest and tries to smile at him. "For ages," he says. It's so cruel, how familiar it feels to have Olly here. There are still photos stuck to the fridge, of them together at Shoreditch; an identical print is tucked into the box at the back of Sophie's closet but Neil couldn't bear to take these down.

"I listened to your album," Olly says. "I remember..." He pauses and shakes his head. "I remember hearing it, I must've, like."

"We played some festivals together," Neil explains. He brings the mugs into the living room and sets them on the coffee table. He sits on the sofa, with Olly occupying the opposite end, and Neil is slammed with the last memory of them together here, Olly's head pillowed on Neil's thigh while they fell asleep watching telly. Olly had flown home during a day off and they had a glorious twenty-two hours before he had to go back to the airport. They'd slept through nearly all of it, but it was the most beautiful twenty-two hours Neil could remember in recent months; he'd listened to Mahler on the ride back from Heathrow because nothing else could quite encapsulate the agony of saying goodbye.

"I want to know everything," Olly says suddenly, with a burst of determination.

Neil watches him for a minute, his hands curled around his mug so he isn't tempted to do anything rash. 

"The doctors have said not to overwhelm you," Neil says.

Olly toes off his shoes and pulls his feet up and tucks them underneath himself, sits up straight with his back against the arm of the couch. "You were important to me," Olly says, his words firm. "You...I don't know what I was to you, but you were..."

Neil's chest aches, his lungs ache and his eyes ache and his jaw aches from clenching it so tight to keep everything inside. He watches Olly for a long time, fighting himself over how to respond. "I don't know what I was to you," Olly says again, his shoulders falling ever so slightly, "but you were important to me."

"What would you like to know?" Neil finally asks, swallowing hard around the lump that's made its way into his throat.

"Everything," Olly whispers, his eyes shining. "I don't remember anything about you." He smiles a little, but it's tinged with sadness. He wipes his hand across his cheek. "I don't remember you at all."

We met ages ago, Neil wants to yell. We met at festivals and I didn't ask your name and you didn't ask mine but we met. "You know my name," is what he says, gentle. "You remember that, yeah?"

"Milan Neil Amin-Smith," Olly says softly, his voice shaking just a bit. "Neil."

Neil nods, biting hard on the inside of his lip. "My birthday is the first of November," he says. "I have a sister, Maya. She adores you." _My whole family adores you,_ he thinks. _Everyone I know adores you._

"I've met them?" Olly asks.

Neil nods. Everything about this, he thinks, every word and every breath and every second, it will kill him. It will be a miracle if he survives. "Several times," he says. "We spent New Year's in Paris."

Olly's eyes widen and he shakes his head. "Paris," he says.

"My dad lives there," Neil says quickly. "We went to see him, to..."

"When did we start dating?" Olly asks. "When did we meet?"

It's a complicated question, Neil thinks. "I don't know if," he starts, but he's not entirely sure what it is he doesn't know.

"Neil," Olly whispers. "Please."

"Start slow, okay," Neil says. "Just start slow." _I can't lose more of you_ , he thinks, imagining the way Olly's memories would slowly disappear, the more overwhelmed he gets. Neil isn't sure that's how amnesia works, but he's too anxious to find out.

Olly watches him for a long time, and then he says, "What's your favorite fruit?"

Neil smiles and scrunches up his nose. "My favorite fruit?" he asks. "My favorite fruit. Pineapple. Probably pineapple."

"Of all fruits," Olly says. "Pineapple, out of all fruits?"

"Out of every one," Neil says. He leans back into the couch and finds he's able to breathe a tiny bit easier. "What about you?"

It's bananas, Neil knows before Olly says it, and Neil makes a face the way he did when he'd first found this out. "I can't believe that's the one, of _all_ fruits."

The questions come faster after that, and Neil tells Olly his favorite sound and his favorite smell, the song that makes him cry most, the last movie he'd seen in theaters, whether he prefers paperback or hardcover books. "Or digital," Olly says with a derisive sneer.

"Oh _god_ , never digital," Neil shudders.

"Yes!" Olly says. "Yes. That's my feeling as well!"

"The smell of the pages," Neil says, "the feel of the pages. The _pages_."

"Do you prefer used books?" Olly asks. "Do you read a lot?"

"Not as much as I'd like," Neil says. "I lost that urge when I was at uni, I've not gotten back into it."

Olly gestures to the bookshelves, mostly empty with boxes marked _books_ stacked in front of them. "Lies, look at those," he says. "You're a proper intellect. Are you a musical genius and a literary genius as well?" He squints at the mantle and gets up. When he walks over and picks up the framed photo, Neil's heart drops into his stomach. "Oh."

It's probably not smart, Neil thinks, to give Olly too much information so soon, but he imagines it's driving Olly more mad to know the barest details without knowing why. 

"Will you come sit?" Neil asks softly, and Olly looks up but doesn't put the frame down.

"This is us," Olly says, carefully. "This is you and me."

"You mean the world to me," Neil whispers before he can help himself, but he doesn't regret saying it.

"I meant the world to you," Olly whispers back. "Before."

"You mean the world to me," Neil says again, louder and more firmly. "Now."

"I don't remember you," Olly says, his eyes filling with tears. "I don't remember this photo. I don't remember your birthday. You meant something to me and I don't know who you are. I meant something to you and I don't even know why."

Neil is off the couch before he even realises what he's doing, and then suddenly he's got Olly wrapped in his arms, Olly's chin hooked over his shoulder and Olly's arms around his waist. 

"I'm sorry," Neil whispers into Olly's hair. "I'm so sorry."

Neil has seen Olly cry plenty of times, has held him and listened and quietly wished violent deaths to those in Olly's past who've fucked him over. The Australian ex, the guy from the pizza shop, his father. It doesn't get easier to see him cry and this time feels like it's the worst of all. 

"I hate crying," Olly whispers, sniffling. "I just don't know what else to do."

"I'd take this all away if I could," Neil whispers. "I'm going to try and fix it, I promise."

Olly curls his hands into fists at the small of Neil's back and he lets out a shaky breath. They stand there like that, intertwined like the vines of a morning glory, tangled and twisted together like one person, one life, one heart. 

"Were we happy?" Olly asks, finally. His words sound the way candlesmoke looks, ghostly and gone with a too-strong exhale.

Neil closes his eyes at the flood of memories. He sees glimpses of Olly from every viewpoint, from balconies and sidestage, from baggage claims and train stations and across hotel rooms. "Endlessly," he whispers. He feels Olly relax, the muscles in his shoulders loosening just a bit. "Hopelessly," Neil adds, and Olly uncurls his hands and presses his palms to the small of Neil's back.

"It shouldn't be possible," Olly says, "forgetting someone like you." He leans back a little and looks up at Neil. "It's a lovely photo," he says softly. "We looked happy."

Neil smiles in spite of how horrific everything is. "We were quite happy," he says, looking at the photo. "I love this photo, James took this photo."

"James," Olly says. "You know James?"

"Yes," Neil says. Olly steps back and puts a hand on the side of his neck as he looks at the photo; Neil watches him, waiting.

"Have you..." Olly frowns. "I've met your mum and dad," he says slowly. "Your sister. You know my mum."

"And your brother," Neil nods. "Yes."

"We were quite settled," Olly says softly. "Did I...was I living here sometimes? With you?" He looks around the room, eyes catching on the boxes and Neil's violin case and the magazines strewn across the coffee table.

"Sometimes," Neil says. "Sometimes. When we were both here. You stay when we're both here, usually."

Olly nods, gesturing to the sofa. "That's one of my jumpers," he says softly.

"You leave little bits behind sometimes," Neil says. He watches Olly, afraid to make any sudden moves.

"I'd really love to know how we met," Olly says, so softly; when he looks up at Neil his eyes are a devastating and hopeless blue. "It must have been..."

"It was, ah," Neil laughs and feels a flush bloom across his cheeks. He thinks of the night they met, the real first time they met. It was hot at Bestival, air thick and heavy, and there had been flashes of heat lightning with no rain. Neil remembers the night in flickers and snapshots; he and Grace had stumbled across a party near the buses and Neil had one too many shots and then he'd - quite literally - run into Olly. 

Olly, who'd had one too many shots himself, and who grabbed Neil's arm and locked eyes with him as they steadied each other with fireworks going off overhead. When Neil thinks of it, it feels like a film.

Neil's not sure how they wound up on the other side of the Clean Bandit bus in the dark, but he'd had Olly pushed up against the wall of the bus. Neil held Olly's wrists so he couldn't touch and kissed him, recklessly and without asking his name. A heavy bass drum was beating fast like a heartbeat in the distance when Neil dropped down on his knees; Olly had pulled his hair too hard while Neil had sucked him off, and he's not sure now if there were fireworks when Olly came or if that part was only in his imagination.

Afterwards, Olly had put a hand on the side of Neil's neck and kissed him, quick and dirty, and whispered, "Thanks," before he'd disappeared into the dark. 

"I'm never drinking again," he groaned into Grace's shoulder the next morning.

"Aw, peaches," she said, patting his cheek. "At least it got you a bit of action."

"You're blushing," Olly says, and he curls up in the corner of the couch, watching Neil with the corners of his mouth quirked up, nearly smiling.

"The first time we met I didn't ask your name," Neil says. He sits at the other end of the sofa, studying his hands and trying to feel less mortified. "The second time we met was much better."

"Ooh," Olly says. He's full grinning now, mischievous, and Neil laughs. "That sounds interesting, why didn't..." He trails off and his eyes go wide. "Oh. _Oh_. Oh my god."

"Oh my god what?" Neil asks. "You don't remember _that_."

Olly has a hand over his mouth, a pink flush spreading across his face now, and he shakes his head. "You were the drunk bloke at Bestival, oh my god," Olly says from behind his hand. "I thought you looked familiar."

" _Excuse_ me," Neil says, "but you were hardly sober, you little _lush_." His own cheeks are burning and of _course_ Olly remembers this; it had happened in the spring. "That's who I am to you, then."

"Oh my god," Olly says again, and he starts giggling. "Oh my god, that's how we met."

"Did you recognise me?" Neil leans forward. "At the hospital, or—did you recognise me then?"

"No," Olly shakes his head. "No! You looked, I thought you looked familiar but I didn't...I didn't realise." He waves his hand at Neil. "You've got to tell me how we met now, how did we find each other again?"

Neil sighs and shakes his head, feeling monumentally embarrassed all of a sudden. "It's quite boring," he says. "You didn't really remember me in the start."

"Oh, I doubt that." Olly rests his head on the back of the couch and watches him. "Maybe I was lying about it."

"I tripped coming into the studio," Neil says. "Over a cord. Nearly broke my face but you grabbed my arm and caught me."

"Hey," Olly had said, and when Neil looked up and met his eyes, he knew immediately where he'd seen Olly before. There was a flicker of recognition across Olly's face, too, but then a quick and impenetrable wall went up behind his eyes and it was as if they were just now meeting for the very first time. 

"Hi," Olly said, letting go of Neil's arm. "I like your shirt."

Neil had been caught so offguard that he blurted out the first thing that came to mind, which was, "It's from Japan."

"It wasn't even from Japan," Neil says now as Olly dissolves into giggles. "I don't know why I said that."

"I can't believe your first words to me were a _lie_ ," Olly says, a bit breathlessly. "You tripped and I caught you?"

Neil nods. _For all of eternity,_ he thinks. _You caught me forever._

"That sounds romantic," Olly says. "And you thought, that's it. He's mine."

Neil laughs a little. "Well, I hadn't heard you sing yet. I was like, this _could_ be it. Not quite sure."

Neil had sat around, pretending to fine-tune his violin while Olly sang the chorus over and over. He hadn't fooled Grace, though, and she sat next to him and whispered, "He's a sweet little pixie, this one."

"He's the guy from Bestival," Neil whispered back. "I never got his name. It's fate."

"Did you think it was fate," Olly asks him, quiet. He sounds afraid of saying it too loudly. 

Neil isn't sure he means it as a question, but he nods anyway. "Yes," he says, sure as anything. "I do."

They'd finished recording after it had gone dark out; Neil mustered up the courage to stop Olly on his way out and he said, "Hey, can I take you for a spot of food?" His heart was pounding and he felt like he was going to pass out.

"I'm vegan," Olly blurted out, one arm in his jacket and his eyes wide.

"Okay," Neil nodded. He'd have eaten just about anything, honestly; he was starved and Olly looked like an angel, Neil would've eaten the gravel off the street if it meant they could spend more time together. "There's a vegan place down the street from here."

Olly watches him for a long time, and then he folds his arm under his head, running his palm over the cushion of the couch. "May I ask a question," he says softly, "and you promise to be honest with me?"

"Always," Neil says. He wants to reach over and put his hand over Olly's, to still his nerves and settle him, bring him back.

"We've not broken up, right?" Olly asks carefully. "This isn't, like, a movie? Where we've just broken up but you can't bear to tell me that bit, so you just decide to pretend everything's fine and you're sort of hoping you'll fall back in love with me, too?"

Neil stares at him for a long time, unsure of how to respond. The idea of breaking up with Olly has truly never occurred to him; they've had fights and Neil knows he's had days where he's felt stretched too thin. Once he'd been flying home after spending twelve hours with Olly at a hotel in an airport in Florida. Olly kissed him breathless before Neil had to run to the gate, and once he'd got through security he'd ducked into the gents and actually cried in a toilet stall.

 _doesnt it evr feel like its all just TOO much sometimes?_ he texted Olly at a particularly weak moment, before wiping his eyes with a scratchy paper handtowel and tucking his phone in his back pocket.

He hadn't checked his phone again until he was on the plane, a blessed window seat in first class and a ten hour flight ahead. He'd taken it out to turn it to airplane mode and Olly had sent him three messages. _i luv u_ , the first one said. _evry day feels lik 2 much but in the end dont u thnk its all worth the trouble?_ said the second.

The third just said, _i thnk its worth it, evry minute. evn when u leave me 4 tht popstr life._ There'd been a crying face and a pair of lips, and then Olly had sent, _miss u luv u im urs forevr_ , while Neil had been reading the other messages over and over and over.

"No," Neil says now, softly, half in the memory and half in the present. "I've not been able to fall out of love with you yet."

"Keeps getting worse," Olly says quietly. He smiles a self-deprecating smile, and Neil reaches over and nudges his knuckles against Olly's knee.

"You're unbearable," Neil says. "Truly."

Olly laughs and pushes his shoulders back, stretching. "I've probably overstayed my welcome," he says softly around a yawn, but Neil is shaking his head before Olly even finishes speaking.

"Never," Neil says. "No. Of course not."

"I should go," Olly says. "I should."

Neil is quiet for a moment and then he says, soft and careful, "If you'd like, you can stay here." The words land heavy between them, and Olly watches him for what feels like forever.

"I don't think I should," Olly says quietly. "I don't think that would be very smart."

"It's a long ride back to your flat," Neil says. He hopes he's not coming across too desperate. "I have a guest room," he offers, a bit of an afterthought.

Olly watches him for a long time, and then he says, softly, "Do you fall asleep to classical music?"

Neil swallows hard and nods. "Usually," he says.

"My phone is full of you," Olly says. "It's like." He worries his bottom lip with his teeth, watching Neil, studying him. "I've got photos and playlists about you," he says, finally. "I don't even like classical music."

"You just haven't heard any good classical music," Neil says without even thinking. He's already on the defense, ready with a hundred pieces to recommend to Olly. "Modern music was built upon the principles of classical music, how can you just say you don't _like_ it?"

Olly giggles, scrunching up his nose. "You're awfully passionate, yeah?" he says. "It's not like you're a classical musician, though, your music is quite modern."

"I have respect for its origins, which you clearly do not," Neil says, indignant but amused; Olly pretends to be offended but he's smiling. "I was classically trained, just because I'm not playing classical music _now_."

Olly laughs and says, "What do you want to do, they said you'd won awards? Where did you study?"

Neil feels suddenly overwhelmed again with the rapidfire questions; he rubs the back of his neck. "Ah, well," he says. "We've been nominated quite a bit. We've won a Grammy award."

"Nooo," Olly breathes, his eyes gone wide. "You've got a Grammy, could I see it?"

Neil smiles a little and gets up, goes to his bedroom. The Grammy is tucked away in the box it was shipped in; when he takes it out, with it comes a greeting card with a brightly colored cartoon kitten on the front, holding balloons and throwing confetti.

"I can't believe there's not a section of cards for _congrats on your Grammy win_ ," Olly said as he pushed past Neil into his flat. Neil hadn't even gotten his jacket off yet and his suitcase was sat next to the front door; Olly turned to him and presented a huge bouquet of roses and a bright green envelope. "Hello, darling."

"What's this?" Neil took the roses and the envelope and set them down, grabbed Olly and kissed him desperately. "Hello."

Olly laughed, bright and big, and he put his hand on Neil's chest. "You won a _Grammy_! You know how movies are always like, Academy Award-winning so-and-so, Academy Award-nominated whoever, all that? I'm going to call you Grammy Award-winning Neil from now on. My Grammy Award-winning boyfriend."

Neil opened the card while he was laughing and handfuls of glittering gold stars fell out onto the floor. "Oliver," Neil said, but inside the card Olly had written, _SO proud of you, congrats to my shining star!!!!!!!_ and signed it _all my love always, O_.

Olly clears his throat from the doorway and Neil closes the card and looks over his shoulder. "Sorry," Olly says quietly, and he nods towards Neil. "Is that it?"

Neil is cradling the Grammy like a baby, the gold shining almost impossibly brightly. "This is it," he says. Olly walks over and looks at it like he can't quite believe it's real. Neil says, "Would you like to hold it?"

"I feel like I'd get fingerprints all over it," Olly says, laughing a little.

"Ah, that's alright," Neil says, and he holds it out. "Careful to support its neck," he says, grinning, and Olly laughs. He brushes his thumb over the nameplate, over Neil's name engraved into the metal. "When it came in the mail, I honestly cried." Neil's not sure he'd ever told Olly that before, but Olly doesn't seem surprised.

"I probably would, too," Olly says quietly, eyes trained on the award. "Like. I can't imagine."

Neil watches him for a long time and feels as if he's traveled back in time. "You've won awards, too," he says softly. It hits him, now, how Olly's got no idea of the impact he's made. Olly doesn't know about any of it. "Olly."

Olly looks at him but Neil hasn't the slightest idea how to explain any of it to him. "You've just," Neil says, softly. "You're so important to so many…" His voice breaks and he clears his throat, but when he tries to continue, he finds that it's all too much.

Olly bites his lip and he hands the statue back; Neil puts it back into the box and tucks the card in with it. "I think I should really go," Olly says carefully.

"I'll walk you to the bus," Neil says. He puts a jumper on and grabs his keys. The walk to the bus stop is silent.

"I'm really trying," Olly finally says, his voice shaking, as the bus turns onto Neil's street. "I wish I could remember."

"It's alright, baby," Neil says, without thinking. The bus pulls up in front of them and Olly looks up at him; Neil puts his hand on the back of Olly's neck and kisses his forehead, quick like lightning and, he imagines from the way Olly looks at him when he pulls back, just as devastating and sudden.

"Have a good night, Neil," is all he says, and he gets on the bus before Neil can respond.

Neil walks slowly back to his flat and when he gets to his steps he just stops, looks up at his window. Things had been so different, when he'd moved in; he'd pictured carrying Olly's boxes up these steps, unpacking their clothes into one closet, mixing their books together on the bookshelves. Things had been so different.

He takes out his phone while he's waiting for the elevator and tweets, _forgetting already_. He knows Olly will probably see it. When he gets to his floor his phone lights up with a message but he doesn't open it until he gets inside his flat, behind the safety of his door.

 _i cant believ i lost u of all things,_ Olly says. _i cant believe i had this beautifl thign n its all just gone._

Neil turns his phone off and goes to bed.

 

  
"He's only lost _me_ ," Neil says to Maya and Rupert the next day. They've met at a little restaurant down the street for lunch; Maya has a break from her rehearsal, Rupert's got a meeting at work in an hour, and Neil is on his second mojito. He's about ready to order another three or four or ten. He wants to talk about anything but Olly but Maya and Rupert don't want to hear about anything but Olly and they're watching him with identical concerned expressions. Neil's phone has been lighting up with messages from his mum all morning, but he's been ignoring them, glancing at the screen to make sure nothing's come in from Olly.

 _even if it nevr comes back its not gone forevr,_ Neil had finally replied when he'd woken up. _i mean isn't this a movie plot or smthng? like 50 first dates. ill just recreate evrythng if thats what it takes_.

Olly hadn't replied for a long time, and when he did it was, _lol ok_.

 _that was an ill-timed joke_ Neil wrote back immediately. _im rly sorry :(_ But Olly hadn't written back since.

"Maybe it'll just take one little thing," Neil says, turning his phone facedown on the table beside his plate. "Do you think the stages of grief apply here? Am I stuck in denial?"

"No, no," Rupert shakes his head. "It's only been a few days; it's still early. You're not stuck there."

"That's not very reassuring," Neil mutters as he finishes his drink. "It's truly cruel that he remembers me from that stupid festival. It's cruel."

"It was a good memory, though," Rupert says. He's smiling but his eyes are so sad, Neil thinks, and he wants to leave this café and run until he can't run anymore, far away from Rupert and this city and this horrible reality he's suddenly wound up living in.

"I need another drink," Neil says, but Maya slides her water glass over to him.

"You need to drink water," she says. "And eat something, for god's sake."

Neil frowns at her. "You don't know what this feels like," he starts, and she shakes her head and orders him a salad with chicken when the waiter comes back to take their order. Neil takes an angry drink of his water and turns his phone volume on and checks the screen again. Nothing.

"Nobody knows what this feels like," Maya says patiently. "But you can't let yourself…" She looks at Rupert. Rupert just looks back at her; Maya sighs and turns back to Neil.

"He remembers me from _last summer_ ," Neil says. "That's all I am to him."

"Come on, now," Rupert says. "He's got your photos, your texts. You said yourself that he can see that you had something. You still have him."

"He has amnesia," Neil says. "Those photos and texts are parts of a life he doesn't remember, I'm essentially a _stranger_ to him."

Neil's phone goes off, and he looks at the screen while Rupert says, "He's not sent you away, Neil, you've got to be patient." 

Olly has finally messaged him back. _so im @ rehearsl_ he says, _& emre said i wrote this song calld shine, but i dont kno it??_ There are ellipses in a bubble underneath the message and then finally he adds _im sry :(_ and Neil feels as if his heart has been plunged into an icy bath.

Neil switches his phone off and changes the topic so they get talking about Maya's next performances, and he's able to feign focus on that through the rest of the meal. 

Once he's on the bus back to his flat, he turns his phone back on. Olly's added, _i kno its abt u_ and then _its vry hopeful &positive, all the pieces of th puzzle make me think u mustve been rly importnt 2 me too_.

 _its a beautifl song,_ Neil says. He types out, _it's my favrite song of all time_ and then erases it; then he writes, _i listen to it whenevr im not w/ u_ and erases that too. The sun is golden and shining in his eyes when he dials Olly's number, and he closes his eyes while it rings and then Olly says, "Hello?"

"Hi," he says, and then he adds, "It's Neil. Hi."

Olly laughs. "I know," he says, "it came up on the screen. Do I usually answer differently?"

It stings a bit, how reserved Olly sounds. _I usually call you baby,_ he thinks. _Normally you know the sound of my voice_. Out loud, he just says, "No, not really."

"Oh," Olly says. "Okay."

The mundane details are the ones that sting the most, when Neil realises that Olly doesn't know Neil's birthday or the way he answers the phone or who lived where, before. "How's it going?" Neil asks, opening his eyes and looking at the sun until the shape's burned into his retinas.

"Okay," Olly says. His voice cracks a bit, and Neil closes his eyes again. "It's alright."

"Listen, you sound…" Neil clears his throat. "You sound tired, I just. I just wanted to say that if…if you'd like me to tell you about us, all you have to do is ask."

Olly lets out this soft little sigh and Neil immediately regrets saying anything, regrets calling him at all. "Neil," Olly says with another exhale of breath, and he suddenly sounds like he's light years away. "It's been a long day, I—"

"Okay," Neil says. "Okay. That's okay."

"Maybe tomorrow," Olly says cautiously.

"Maybe tomorrow," Neil echoes as the bus slows down and pulls over to let people off. He's still a good fifteen minutes from his flat, but he gets off anyway, suddenly feeling as if he's trapped. "Give me a call, yeah?"

"Yeah," Olly says. "Yeah. I will, yeah. I promise."

"You don't have to," Neil says softly, watching his feet as he walks down the sidewalk, stepping over the cracks. It's been too long since he heard this Olly, the one who'd thought he had to convince Neil he'd call him or he'd meet him somewhere or he'd like to see him again. "I believe you. You don't have to do that, I believe you."

Olly sighs again, deeper and more hollow, and he says, "Right, I'm sorry. Sorry."

"It's alright," Neil says. "Get some rest, don't forget to eat something."

"I won't," Olly says, laughing a little. "It was good to talk to you."

"You too." Neil has to bite back the _I love you_ ; it feels too natural and he very nearly can't stop himself but he does. "Bye, Olls."

There's a small pause and then Olly says, "Bye, Neil," and the line goes dead. Neil puts his phone in his pocket and walks past the doorway to his building. He keeps walking and goes around the block four times before he feels like he's caught his breath enough to go inside.

 

  
Neil doesn't hear from Olly again the next day until late. Olly texts him _i learnd how to play shine on the piano 2dayyyy_ after seven in the evening, and Neil sends back a message filled with confetti. _its so pretty_ , Olly writes back. _i rly cant believ i wrote this_.

This time, Neil does send back, _its truly 1 of my fave songs of 2015_ , and Olly replies with a long string of smiling faces with pink cheeks and their eyes closed. Neil goes to bed happy and dreams of Olly, hugging him and smiling and whispering, "I remember you," into the side of his neck.

Neil sleeps until almost noon and wakes up feeling rested and relaxed for the first time in weeks. He checks his phone and has a couple of messages from Olly. _guess what we r done w/ rehearsl EARLY_ and _i feel lik kids feel when schools out, emre is all work &NO play_ and then Neil's phone rings. "Hi," he says, still laughing at Olly's last message.

"Hiii," Olly says. The way he says it, it sounds like he's smiling too. "What're you doing, am I interrupting you?"

"No, no," Neil says, sitting up in bed. "Hi, what's up, what're you doing?"

"I literally just asked you this exact question," Olly says, laughing. "Are you busy? Now, or tonight or anything?"

"Not now or tonight," Neil says, a bit too eagerly. "Or anything. No. Why?"

"I was hoping," Olly says, and then he pauses. "I thought maybe we could, like. Get together. Maybe watch some telly or play board games or something."

The idea of playing board games with Olly sounds heavenly, Neil thinks, and he nods and says, "Yes, yes, let's do something tonight."

"Yeah?" Olly says.

"Yeah," Neil says. "When can you be here, would you like to come over now?"

"Is that alright?" Olly asks. "I'm leaving the rehearsal space in a few minutes, I'll get a taxi to yours from here?"

Neil's heart jumps into his throat at the thought, and he says, "No, no, I'll come meet you."

"Don't be silly," Olly says, "I'll be fine to get there."

"Olly," Neil says. His mind is flashing with glimpses of half-melted candles and hospital lights and all he can hear is Vicki's voice saying his name. "Please let me come meet you, I'll come meet you."

 _Life changes in the ordinary instant,_ he remembers suddenly.

On the other end of the phone, Olly sighs. "Okay," he says.

"It's no trouble, really," Neil says, softer. He feels a bit stupid; his heart is still racing.

"Alright," Olly says again, but he doesn't sound like he believes that. Neil's not sure he believes it. "I'll wait here for you, then?"

"If you don't mind," Neil says. "If that's…"

"I don't mind," Olly says quickly. "I'll see you in a bit." He hangs up without saying goodbye and Neil sighs and lays in bed with his hand over his eyes until his head stops spinning.

He's changed his clothes and splashed cold water on his face when his phone lights up with a message from Olly. _i kno u keep saying im not but i feel like such a massiv inconvenience,_ he's sent. _i can get to ur flat ok on my own i dont want u to feel lik uve got to babysit or w/e_.

 _u were coming here that nite i rly dont feel comfortbl w u travling here again like that yet_. Neil sends it back too quickly, caught in a moment of weakness, and as soon as it goes through he adds, _its not tht i think u cant get here ok but i also dk if u cant get broken on the way, idk if that makes sense. my mind is moving 2 fast 2 check my doubl negatives._

When Neil gets to the rehearsal space, Olly hasn't replied to his text, but he's sitting outside on a bench. He's looking off in the opposite direction, worry lines across his forehead. Neil's had enough time to calm his thoughts on the tube on his way over, and once he's gotten close enough he says, "I think I behaved a bit irrationally, earlier."

Olly looks up at him and Neil notices he's had his stitches out; the scar has started to look less angry and Neil wants to reach over and rub his thumb across it, kiss it better. 

"No, no, no," Olly says, shaking his head and standing up. "I wasn't—you weren't acting irrationally, I'm sorry." He walks over and before Neil can process anything, Olly is hugging him.

"There's a difference between fear and intuition," Neil says as he hugs Olly back. "It's just fearful thoughts." He's not sure who he's trying to convince.

Olly leans back and looks at him. Neil studies his face and tries to figure out which Olly is standing here, the one who remembers him or the one who doesn't. 

It's almost as if Olly can read his mind because his expression softens and he says, "Sorry, I still can't…" He shakes his head with sorrow in his eyes.

Neil pulls him close again and hugs him tight, one hand pressed flat to Olly's back between his shoulderblades and the other cupping the back of Olly's head. "I miss you, that's all," he says, barely a whisper. "I'm scared you won't ever…" He trails off, partly because he's not sure how to finish.

And again, it's like Olly can read his mind, because Olly hugs him even tighter and whispers, "I'm scared, too."

They stand that way, tangled and lost in each other, until a breeze stirs up the air and everything suddenly goes unseasonably chilly. 

"Let's get back, yeah?" Neil says, his voice sounding a bit rougher than he'd like it to sound.

Olly doesn't step back straight away but he nods, and he squeezes Neil once more before stepping back. His eyes are rimmed in red but he smiles anyway. Neil takes his hand as they walk to the bus; Olly links their fingers together and doesn't let go.

 

  
They stop off to pick up Nando's on the walk to Neil's flat and Olly gets a little chattier when Neil orders an extra side of peri-peri nuts and olives. "I could exist on these nuts alone," he's saying once they're back in the flat. "Nothing but these, I'd die happy."

Olly toes off his shoes and curls up in the corner of the couch with the container of nuts while Neil takes out a stack of board games from the closet. When he sets them on the coffee table, Olly's eyes light up and he says, "Oh! Boggle!"

Neil narrows his eyes and ignores the ache in his chest and says, "This is a dangerous game, Oliver. Perhaps we should stick to something a bit easier, like Risk."

Olly groans and pulls a face. "No," he says. "No. Boggle, give it here."

Neil kneels on the floor on the opposite side of the coffee table and opens the box, and their last score sheet is on top of the board. _OLLY WINS!!!!!!!_ is written in big letters across Neil's side of the page and Neil rolls his eyes out of habit as he puts it aside. Olly reaches for it and smiles wistfully, holding it up for Neil. "I wrote this," he says. He sounds almost proud. 

Neil glances at him and smiles. "Seems like you did," he says. The memory of the game still stings a bit; in the last round Olly had gotten words like _eyeball_ and _ideally_ but he'd sat next to Neil on the couch that night. He'd been lazily running his hand up and down Neil's thigh, higher and higher until the only word Neil could pick out from the board before the timer ran out was _yay_.

Olly giggled into Neil's neck after they'd tallied up all the points, tugging at Neil's hair while Neil pushed him onto his back on the couch and pulled his shirt off. "Oh, look," Olly said with a devilish grin while he ran his hand over Neil's stomach, "I'm really winning in all aspects of tonight."

"Alloyed is a great word," Olly says now, reading the words on the paper. "You found yay!"

Neil laughs and shakes his head. He tries to shake the memory, but he can't get Olly's smile to go away. "You go first," he says, and Olly gets serious and cracks his knuckles.

Afternoon turns to evening while they play game after game of Boggle. Neil wins a couple rounds and then Olly wins a couple rounds, and there's lots of yelling and then Neil starts using French words when the board is particularly generous with the letters. "What the _fuck_ ," Olly shouts when Neil uses _briller_. "That is _not_ a word."

"There aren't rules against multilingual words," Neil says calmly as he tallies his points.

"That's _not_ how this game works!" Olly says. "That's only fair if you play with multilingual people!"

"It sounds like you need to step up your game, then, I can't help it if I'm a scholar with the knowledge of twice as many words as you are." Neil smiles at him. "Twenty-six points!"

"I quit," Olly says, crossing his arms over his chest. "You're actually the worst."

Neil laughs and Olly breaks immediately, smiling at him through the scowl he's had for the last ten minutes. 

"You've still _won_ , this was a desperate last ditch effort. Fruitless." Neil tosses the pen on the table and looks at his phone. There's a few messages from James, asking if he'll be coming out to a gig he's DJing tonight. Neil scrolls back through the messages and he says, "Hey, d'you want to go out?"

He asks it before he really thinks about it, but before he can take it back, Olly's sat up a little straighter. Neil looks at him and Olly says, "Out where, like to a club?"

"My friend's DJing tonight," Neil says. "I'll tell him I'm busy, it's alright."

"No, let's go out," Olly says, leaning forward. "Let's go out, where is it?" He waves a hand before Neil can answer and says, "Never mind, it doesn't matter. Let's go, I'd like to go." He's off the couch before Neil can protest. "Come on! Get up, come on." Olly holds out a hand and Neil looks at it and then at Olly.

It's at O2 Academy Brixton, he wants to say, but he can't find the words. _Maybe you'll remember?_

Their last show together had been on a Wednesday evening in Brixton, and it had come at the end of a tumultuous two weeks of being in Olly's immediate vicinity at every possible opportunity. It started after the first show in Newcastle, when everyone had gone out to a pub near the hotel afterward. Neil had been the last to arrive, and he'd found Olly sitting on one side of a booth, leaning back against the wall and hugging his knees to his chest, with Grace and Emre on the other side of the table. He'd been halfway through a pint of dark beer, laughing while he says something to Grace, and Neil remembers, now, how radiant he'd looked.

Neil had taken a deep breath and walked over to their table. He'd sat down beside Olly — or in front of him, really — and Olly had turned to look at him and grinned so big that Neil's knees had gone weak. "You've made it!" Olly said. "Hi!"

From the corner of his eye, Neil had seen Grace and Emre exchange a look that felt meaningful, and his stomach had done a little flip.

Neil smiled back and put a hand on Olly's knee and squeezed gently and said, "Course I made it, can't turn down a post-show pint, can I?"

"Don't let him fool you," Grace said. "He _never_ has any post-show pints."

"He'll have a sip of mine," Olly decided. "Tonight was momentous. Epic. You can't go to bed without at least a sip. It's celebratory."

And Neil did, took a sip of Olly's beer, and then a sip of the next one when Olly'd gotten up for a refill. He'd have lassoed the moon, if Olly had asked him to. From the beginning Olly's had him wrapped around his finger.

They'd walked back to the hotel in pairs down the sidewalk, and Olly had walked a bit too close beside Neil, bringing up the back of their group. "Alright," Olly had said quietly to himself, walking a little crookedly, and Neil had laughed softly. "I'm fine."

"You're fine," Neil said quietly, but he'd kept pace with Olly and put a hand on the small of his back each time Olly had stumbled while they walked.

"I'm not normally this much of a lush," Olly had said, and he'd blinked at Neil and smiled a lovely smile, touching two fingers to his bottom lip and looking stunning under a nearly full moon. "I swear."

They take a taxi to the venue, and when they're dropped off the line's already gone inside. Olly is quiet as they go to the doors, looking around with careful eyes; Neil gives his name to security and they both get bracelets to go inside. It's more crowded than Neil would like and he realises, belatedly, that people might recognise them here. 

"Here, stick close to me, yeah?" Neil says to Olly, and Olly looks at him, eyes a bit wild. "Lots of people," he notes, laughing a little and putting his hand on Neil's elbow. His touch feels electric; Neil reaches over and touches Olly's knuckles, hoping it grounds him even just a bit.

A few fans stop them as they walk through the lobby, and Olly seems surprised by the attention but he takes selfies with each one. He sticks his tongue out and makes peace signs, just like always, and he hugs them, just like always. It almost seems as if everything is back to normal, but Neil notices that they're all treating Olly gently. They ask how he's been doing and if he knows when they'll be back on tour, and they smile at Neil with sympathetic eyes. When Olly comes back to him, he stays closer and takes Neil's hand like he's afraid he'll be swept away.

Neil suddenly feels like he's suffocating under the weight of the memories when they walk into the theatre. He's not been back here with Olly since tour ended, and every inch of the room makes him feel like he's been transported back in time to 2014, too, except he has too many memories while Olly still has none.

After Newcastle, Neil had found himself watching Years & Years from the wings every night, in Glasgow and Leeds and Liverpool. And he'd catch Olly sometimes, watching from the opposite side of the stage during Clean Bandit's set, but gone by the time they'd come offstage.

In Manchester, Olly had shown up on their bus after the show. He'd given Neil one of his earbuds and they sat together in the lounge for hours, listening to music until long after everyone else had gone to sleep. It had been in the lounge that Neil really started to get to know Olly, and the walls started to come down.

On the road to Sheffield, they talked about their upbringings and their families; the only thing they seemed to have in common were younger siblings. On the road to Norwich, they talked about their past relationships; Neil's past girlfriends had always told him he was too much, while Olly's boyfriends all thought he was just never enough.

On the road to Nottingham, they talked about music. Olly sang in the shower and Neil sat first chair at Cambridge and Neil said, "Isn't it incredible how we've traveled such different paths and yet somehow we've both ended up at exactly the same place?"

They'd seen the sun come up over Birmingham, by the time they felt tired enough to try to go to sleep.

The energy shifted a bit after they shared a bed in a too-crowded hotel room in Bristol. There had been too much alcohol after the show and the next morning, Neil – half-awake and disoriented by the haze of too many cities in too few days – kissed Olly's shoulder and pulled him closer before falling back asleep. He'd woken up properly later, when Olly was trying to untangle himself without waking Neil up. 

"Ah," Neil said, pulling back too quick and feeling horrified with himself.

Olly had gathered his phone and his jacket and his shoes. "I should probably go," Olly said quickly. He wouldn't look at Neil. "I'm going to go."

In Cardiff and Exeter and then again in Bexhill, Neil only saw him fleetingly – at meals sometimes and passing each other in the hallway on the way to and from soundcheck.

Neil watched their set in Brixton from sidestage; he didn't think Olly had any idea he was there but then when Olly sat down at the piano, he looked up and they locked eyes for a split second before Olly looked down at his hands on the keys. He sang, "Let me take your heart, love you in the dark, no one has to see," when he looked up to make eye contact with Neil again before he looked away.

 _Everyone can see,_ Neil remembered thinking. It was then that he realized that Olly already had his heart, no matter how much Neil had tried to convince himself that wasn't the case. _I've already let you have it,_ Neil tried to tell him without saying it out loud. _It's already yours._

When the crowds were long gone and the venue empty, Neil went back inside and found Olly by himself in the theatre, leaning on the railing at the front of the stage. He had a look of wonder on his face; he looked over at Neil and smiled brighter than the stage lights had ever been, and Neil smiled back because it was physically impossible not to.

"This was crazy," Olly said. Neil wasn't sure whether he meant the shows or this thing that had been brewing between them, this tension and energy and desperate need for each other.

"You're a proper rockstar," Neil said. "About to take the world by storm. I knew you when." He smiled wistfully, and Olly smiled back but he shook his head.

"You're the most beautiful person I've ever seen," Olly said, softly and unexpectedly. His eyes sparkled and the way he spoke, his voice was like music. "I'm…" He sighed and shook his head. "Neil."

"I'm fairly sure I've fallen in love with you," Neil said in a voice that didn't sound like his own. Certain and confident, he sounded far away to his own ears, but in his heart he'd never felt more sure of anything in his life.

Neil hadn't been sure he was the one who actually said it out loud but the way Olly's face softened made him think that maybe it was him who said it. Maybe he'd actually been brave enough after all.

"I've never felt this way about anyone before," Olly said quietly, cautiously. "What if…"

Neil closed the distance and cupped Olly's face in both hands and kissed him, just like that. Olly put his hands on Neil's wrists and made a noise like he was trying to protest, but he'd kissed back.

When it was over and Neil pulled back for a breath of air, he felt dizzy and lightheaded, like he'd just been startled awake. "I've never felt this way either," Neil said quietly, his heart thumping wildly in his ribcage and his throat and his toes. 

"You're making me feel everything," Olly whispered, and his eyes sparkled with tears under the house lights.

"You're worth it," Neil whispered back, and he kissed Olly again.

Neil is so lost in his own memories that he doesn't realise they're at nearly that exact spot in the room until a dance remix of King comes on over the speakers. Olly's grip on his hand gets too tight immediately, and Neil sucks in a breath and holds it. 

"I can't do this," Olly says, and he pulls at Neil's hand. "This is too much, I need to get out of here. I need to leave."

Neil doesn't even stop to think before he's leading Olly back the way they'd come, through the crowds and out to the lobby, and he doesn't let go of Olly's hand until they've gotten outside. When he turns to look at Olly under a streetlight, Olly is hugging his arms around his torso and shivering, and Neil doesn't even think before he takes off his jacket and drapes it around Olly's shoulders. 

"You don't have to," Olly says quietly, but Neil is hugging him before he can even finish speaking.

"Ah, I was too hot anyway," he says, a hand on the back of Olly's neck, and Olly slides his hands around Neil's waist and buries his face in Neil's neck. "You're alright."

"I feel like I've been put here," Olly whispers against Neil's skin. "Like someone plucked me from my familiar life and set me down in this new one but didn't tell me how to live in it." Neil feels Olly's hands curl into fists against his back and then Olly whispers, "I wish they'd at least told me how to love you."

Neil closes his eyes and takes a deep breath through his nose to try and dull the ache that's suddenly overwhelming in his throat. He can feel the shift of Olly's jaw as he clenches it and unclenches it, the way Olly does when he's trying to keep the tears in. It's all so unfair, he thinks, and he feels too much like a petulant child. _I wish they'd told you how, too, I'm afraid I can't do this alone,_ he thinks desperately, and Olly lets out a shaking breath as if he'd heard Neil say it out loud.

"Let's go, yeah?" Neil finally manages to say, and he has to will himself to let go of Olly. They make eye contact for the briefest of moments and Olly's eyes are rimmed in red, shining too bright for a night with only a sliver of moon in the sky.

Neil has to shove his hands in his pockets as they start for the tube, but after about three steps, he just can't take it. He puts an arm around Olly and pulls him close while they walk. Olly resists a bit, but then he puts his arm around Neil's waist and they walk, silent, to the tube.

They've just missed the train and they're standing together on the platform, waiting for the next one, when Olly says, "You're a fucking saint, d'you know that?" His voice is rough and ragged and Neil looks away before Olly turns to look at him. "For sticking around. You deserve a medal of honor. You're so selfless."

Neil watches down the track for the train, but nothing's coming. "You're mad if you think I wouldn't stay," Neil says softly. "I'm not a saint, I would never let you go through this alone." He's never felt more selfish in his life, desperately wishing for these memories so Olly could come back to him.

Olly is quiet for a long time and it feels like time has stopped. "If you ever feel like you can't do this anymore," he finally says carefully, "if you can't be with me like this—"

Neil is shaking his head before Olly can finish speaking. "I'm in this with my whole heart," he says, sounding far more confident than he feels. "Just because we never took official vows doesn't—it doesn't mean I'm not here for good times and bad." He closes his eyes and regrets saying that as soon as it's out.

They'd spent a day together in Ireland in autumn. They'd rented a car and Olly had taken Neil to an old castle he'd read about in an in-flight magazine. They wore wellies as they trudged through a field in the rain and Olly had stood in the doorway and announced, "Someday, I'm getting married in a castle just like this."

"Sometime other than the autumn, I hope," Neil said, laughing and pulling his sleeves over his hands. "Have to be summer, otherwise you'll have to be in wellies at your own wedding. You don't want to be in wellies at your own _wedding_."

"Do _you?_ " Olly asked eagerly, taking both of Neil's hands and pulling him into the doorway. Olly stood up on his tiptoes to kiss Neil while a sudden gust of wind gave him chills. "It would be quite fitting, you don't think so? Wellies and tuxedos, imagine that."

Neil had never seen himself as the marrying type until that day in Ireland; he thought about the way the wind was blowing when he went to a jewellers the next weekend with Emma and Marykatherine. They had been dating for six weeks to the day when he picked up the ring.

He's had it with him every day since then, but never found the right time to ask Olly to wear it; ever since the accident it's been tucked away in the top drawer of his dresser, out of sight but never out of Neil's mind.

"I think what makes me the most crazy is that I just don't understand how I got lucky enough to find you," Olly says.

Neil can't help but laugh. "That's literally what I ask myself every single day of my life," he says, "like, how could I possibly be so lucky?" He looks at Olly and finds that Olly has been watching him, and the parts of his heart that have remained intact suddenly feel like they're breaking, too.

When they get on the train, Olly sits in an empty seat and Neil sits beside him. Olly looks out the window and Neil watches him for a long time before he has to look away. Olly doesn't say anything but after a moment, he reaches over and takes Neil's hand. Neil never wants him to let go.

Olly doesn't let go until they get to the front steps of his flat, where he hugs Neil for a long time and tells him over and over, "I'm sorry."

Neil isn't sure what he's sorry for – for tonight, for everything that's happened, for things Neil has no idea about – but he hugs Olly back and says, "You've got nothing to be sorry for." He kisses Olly's temple and Olly sighs. "Unless it's for Boggle, in which case I accept the apology."

Olly laughs and it sounds bright and bold, like the peals of church bells on a cool morning. "I'm _not,_ " he says, and when Neil steps back Olly is smiling. "G'night, Neil."

"Night." Neil smiles at him and goes down the steps, and he looks over his shoulder and watches Olly go inside.

When he gets home, Neil intends to sleep, but he winds up restless in bed until the early hours of the morning. He tries to read and gets stuck on a passage from Giovanni's Room. _People who remember court madness through pain, the pain of the perpetually recurring death of their innocence_ it reads. _People who forget court another kind of madness, the madness of the denial of pain and the hatred of innocence; and the world is mostly divided between madmen who remember and madmen who forget._

Neil reads it over and over before snapping a photo of it with his phone. Normally he'd send it to Olly but he feels guilty doing that, somehow; instead he puts it on Twitter, captioning it with, _i think i'm a madman who remembers_. He turns off his phone and falls immediately into a dreamless sleep.

 

The next morning, Neil sits at his picture window with a mug of hot coffee and his phone while the sun comes up. He'd woken up a few hours after he'd fallen asleep, tossing and turning in his too empty bed until his phone buzzed on his bedside table. _r u awake?_

Neil blames the vulnerability of Olly's texts on a lack of sleep; his walls have come down for the first time in days and their conversation has been both refreshing and heartwrenching. 

Neil reads and rereads all of their messages from this morning, long paragraphs of choppy feelings and thoughts that don't quite make sense but somehow make all of the sense in the world. He's never felt more alone than he does in this situation and he'd said to Olly, _i mean ur here but YOURE not HERE if that makes sense? idk if it does. i mean ur not here in the metaphysical sense not in the literal sense._

Olly wrote right back, _yes yes it makes every bit of sense thats exactly how i worry it is for u thanks fr confirmng my fears._

 _sorry_ , Neil said with a bunch of different sad faces.

 _its like im trappd in my body & all my memories r trappd in ur body,_ Olly says now. _i must miss u, right? i cant comprehedn how i wouldn't but idk where 2 find that feelng._

Maya stops by on her way to work, with warm turnovers from the bakery down the street from Neil's flat.

"Good morning, love," she says, kissing him on top of the head. "You look awfully pensive." 

"Olly's realised he doesn't know how to love me back," Neil says. He says it the way someone might ask about the weather. He sounds either calm or numb, he's not quite sure, but the words are in the universe now and a weight feels like it's been lifted from his shoulders.

Maya is quiet for a long, long time, sitting next to him with a gentle hand on his shoulder. Finally, she speaks.

"When two people find each other the way you and Olly did," and then she pauses for an even longer time. Neil studies the grain of the floorboards under his stocking-feet and when he looks at Maya, her eyes are bright with tears. "I hate to see you like this," she whispers, smiling sadly as a tear slips down her cheek. "I hate that this has happened to you."

"Please don't make me cry," Neil whispers back. "It's too early."

He gives her a tissue and she takes a few deep breaths before she's collected herself again. 

"Your fate doesn't change just because tragedy strikes you," she says to him. "Perhaps this was always meant to happen to you. Perhaps whoever is in charge of the universe wanted you to see that you're strong enough for this challenge."

Neil watches her and wonders how she became so much wiser than he is, how she can see this from what seems to be a beautifully optimistic place. "I love you," Neil says, and Maya gets teary again and hugs him too tight. "I feel like I should say that more often."

His phone lights up and Olly says, _the rly sad bit is that theyre not even my memories, theyre ur half of our memories._ Another message comes through that says, _how unfair is it that ur memories r all that we have? u have 2 carry this burden of remembring this beautiful thing as if ive died or smthg, when does this ever happen irl????_ A sad face with a single tear, and then, _im struck by how unfair this is to u_.

"Do you ever feel like your chest will crack in two?" Neil asks Maya, reading Olly's messages over and over again. "How am I supposed to continue _living?_ "

"Have you spoken to him about Paris?" Maya asks, rubbing Neil's back in comforting circles that feel endless. "You said he'd thought about coming with you on the weekend, before."

Neil sends back, _id rathr shoulder the burden than force the heartbrk on u_ , and to Maya he says, "I've not brought it up again, I think it's best if I don't."

"Maybe it could help him," Maya says. "Maybe it could help both of you."

"I don't think it's a good idea," Neil says.

 _i imagine a love like ours would make 4 a pretty devastating heartbrk,_ Olly sends.

"Remember when you brought him in the spring?" Maya asks, smiling. "Mum and Dad were _so_ taken with him, they adored him, and he was so _nervous_ , I loved that trip."

"He'd never seen Paris properly before. I wanted him to see the cherry blossoms," Neil says softly. He thinks back to the way Olly had walked around the city with eyes as big as saucers, watching Neil as he spoke in French to all of the people at the shops and cafés.

Other than Neil's parents' house, the only place Olly cared to visit in Paris was Père Lachaise Cemetery for the grave of Oscar Wilde. Neil asked him dozens of times if he was _certain_ there wasn't anything else he was dying to see, and Olly always said, "You'll have to deal with a touristy boyfriend for _one_ afternoon."

Olly dragged him into a pharmacy and Neil stood back and watched him choose a tube of mauve lipstick. Neil reached to take it and Olly said, "No, no, I'll do this myself." He marched up to the cashier and conducted the entire transaction in careful but near-perfect French, paying with the right change and everything.

The cashier handed him the bag, and Olly smiled and said, "Merci pour les lèvres." He turned to Neil with a proud smile, and Neil didn't have the heart to tell him he'd just thanked the cashier for the lips.

It started to drizzle while they wandered through the cemetery. Neil had been to Oscar Wilde's grave before, ages ago, and he took Olly down a few wrong paths before they finally found it. "Mon coeur," Olly said, pressing a hand dramatically to his chest.

Neil laughed and watched Olly as he put the lipstick on like he's done it loads of times before. It was a subtle color on him, barely accenting the natural color of his lips, and Olly had looked at Neil with dark eyes before he'd pressed a kiss to the corner of the monument. Thunder rumbled ominously from close by, and Olly looked up at the sky and smiled as it began to rain.

Later, while they walked back to the metro, it started to rain harder and a wind had picked up. They were drenched by the time they got inside the metro station and Neil had slipped on the tile; Olly grabbed his arm and caught him before he fell, laughing breathlessly as Neil steadied himself. "For when the cold winds blow," Olly said, "I will close my eyes calmly, knowing I am anchored to you." He took Neil's hand again and studied the map on the wall and said, "La Chapelle!"

"What was that?" Neil asked.

"A poem I heard once," Olly said, shrugging. "A few times. I love it." He'd looked at Neil and blinked, and he smiled when he said, "Repeat it back to me in French."

The memory is intoxicating now, Olly's smile as bright in his mind's eye as if he'd just smiled that way seconds ago. "That fucking trip," Neil says, smiling fondly. "He dragged me through that cemetery for hours."

"Love does crazy things to people," Maya says softly. She stands up and puts a hand on Neil's shoulder. "I've got to get to work."

She hugs him goodbye for a minute too long, and Neil's throat is tight once she's left. He texts Olly back and says, _nevr in my life have i felt more incomplete_.

The ellipses come up for a moment and then they disappear, and then they're back again but Olly doesn't send anything and they disappear one more time. Neil sits on the couch with his phone, waiting, and finally Olly says, _ive waited literally my whole life to find some1 who loves me like u do_.

 _its been months & i still cant believ nobody got here b4 i did,_ Neil writes back. His heart feels cracked wide open, raw and painful and real. _u r truly evrythng_.

His phone rings with Olly's face on the screen, and he answers it without thinking. "Hi," he says, and Olly sighs in response.

"I've been reading about amnesia," Olly says, and then he pauses. "Hi. That was rude."

Neil laughs a little and pinches the bridge of his nose. "Slightly," he says. "You've been reading?"

"Sometimes people just remember their memories," Olly says. "It's like, all of a sudden they just come back, out of nowhere, like someone's opened the floodgates." _Spontaneous recovery_ , Neil thinks. _It's called spontaneous recovery and I'm afraid to wish for it to happen to you because it sounds too good to be true._ "Maybe that will happen to me," Olly adds after a slight pause, sounding a bit more uncertain.

"Let's go somewhere today," Neil says suddenly. He's suddenly desperate to see Olly, desperate to be close to him.

"When do you leave again?" Olly asks. Clean Bandit has two festivals over the weekend and Neil has been dreading them for weeks, and even more so now that everything's happened to Olly. 

"Tomorrow morning," Neil says. He's not even packed yet.

"Okay." Olly is quiet for a moment and then he says, "Yeah, let's do something today, then. Let's go somewhere, I'd like to see you before you leave."

Neil goes to Olly's flat and they take a taxi to the Serpentine Gallery. Neil calls for a table for lunch and tries to pretend they've never been here before. Olly looks around while remembering nothing, and Neil looks around while remembering everything. Olly points out the same things he'd pointed out when they'd been here in the summer, and when he walks through the pavilion and looks at Neil, the light casts rainbow sunbeams over his face the same way it did weeks ago, when Olly could remember how they'd met.

But Neil takes photos anyway, snaps a shot of Olly with his hand pressed to a seafoam green plexiglass wall, looking up at the ceiling. Olly looks ethereal and stunning and when he looks at Neil, Neil's breath catches in his throat.

Neil can't find a way to respond and he wonders suddenly if it's possible to fall in love with Olly all over again if he's not the one who's forgotten how to love him in the first place.

For lunch, they each order soup, and after Olly steals a spoonful of Neil's burrata soup he says, "Oh, this is heavenly, can we switch?" Neil isn't overly fond of the butternut squash in Olly's bowl, but he switches with him anyway. Olly smiles sweetly and says, "You can have some of mine if you'd like."

"Some of _yours_ ," Neil says, laughing, but they wind up sharing both of the bowls and Neil is already full before their main courses arrive.

Olly says he's too full to walk back to the tube, so they get a taxi at the main entrance. They sit together in the backseat while Neil gives Olly's address without even thinking, and Olly touches the backs of his fingers to Neil's jaw and says softly, "It must be so nice to just remember those things."

Neil puts an arm around Olly and they ride in silence until the taxi stops at a traffic light. Then, over the radio, Neil hears the opening notes for Shine.

"Oh," Olly says once he hears himself singing, and he sits up a little straighter. "This is me, this is my song." Neil thinks for a split second that spontaneous recovery is real and then Olly looks at him and says, "I wrote this song about you?"

It's so distinctly a question that Neil has to remind himself to breathe, in and out, and he nods and says, "Yes."

Neil had first heard Shine when it was a song played on Olly's old Casio keyboard, before Emre had gotten his hands on it to polish it up. Neil spent two full days in New York City, wandering around with Olly before Years & Years had a show in Brooklyn and before Neil had to fly home and miss it. It was cold and bitterly windy and for once Neil was grateful to be at the airport because it was warm and crowded and the feeling was coming back to his toes.

Olly rode to the airport with him and he'd gotten out while Neil took his bag from the trunk. Olly put his hands on Neil's chest and kissed him; his nose was cold and Neil rubbed Olly's upper arms through his jacket and said, "Bye, bye, I'll miss you, get back in the taxi before you freeze to death."

Olly kissed him again and said, "I love you to the moon and back," kissed him one more time, and then got back into the taxi. He rolled down the window a crack and said, "Probably to the moon and then back again, one more time. That's a lot."

Neil smiled and said, "Quite a lot, not sure I've ever seen so much love before."

"I'm filled with it," Olly said as he rolled the window back up. "Safe flight, I love you!" He blew Neil a kiss and Neil pretended to catch it and tuck it into the pocket of his jacket while the taxi drove away.

JFK had been a madhouse because the skies had gotten cloudy and there were talks of a snowstorm; Neil checked in and got through security and found that his flight was still on, a bright and optimistic _on time_ in a sea of _cancelled_ and _delayed_. Just his luck.

He found an outlet and sat down with his bags as his phone pinged with a new email. He saw Olly's name come up and the subject was three emojis – a microphone, a pink heart, and a face with nervous teeth clenched together.

Based on this, Neil was not sure what to expect when he opened the email.

The message was brief and included an attachment called _neilshine.mp4_ , and the message just said, _please listen when you have a moment. i wrote a song about you. love always and forever and endlessly, o_.

Neil downloaded the file immediately and dug his earbuds out of his bag while the song transferred over to his phone. It began to snow while he was putting his laptop away, and then he pressed play and listened while Olly sang about secrets and lightning and love.

 _i wrote a song about you,_ the email said, and Neil had never felt something to be more of an understatement. _You know that you make it shine,_ the song said, and Neil had never felt more overwhelmed.

Another email came in and it was a bit longer; Neil opened it while the song played on repeat. _its a rough cut so if u don't like it u can tell me._ Neil smiled as he imagined Olly's voice, rambling on with too many nerves. _like, emre says it's great but i think he'd say anything was great. i honestly don't care if anybody else likes it, it rly rly matters to me whether u truly like it or not. & now please delete this email & pretend I never told u any of that i just had to get it out ok ok bye love u bye._

And then, like a miracle, over the loudspeaker came the announcement that his flight had been cancelled.

He waited in line at the ticket counter for ages, and when it was finally his turn, he found out that he wasn't going to be able to get out for two more days. He texted Olly after he'd gotten his checked bags and was waiting outside for a taxi, _gues what guess what i'm stuck in NYC for another 48 hrs, lucky you_ and then _i need to see u asap please._

The responses came at a rapid pace. _wait what_ , and then _wait what???_ The third one said, _is this a joke?????_ and after that the next one said, _u didn't happen to check ur email did u???_ , Neil put his phone in his pocket and grinned out the window of the taxi.

When he knocked on Olly's hotel room, the door flew open. 

"I've been following you on Find My Friends," Olly said, a bit frantically. "Have you checked your email? Hi. Have you checked your email? Maybe you shouldn't look at it right now."

Neil still had one earbud in. "You wrote a song about me," he said, and the color drained from Olly's face. "You wrote a song about me?"

"I wrote a song about you," Olly said, wincing. "I know."

"Olly," Neil said, but Olly reached up and clapped his hand over Neil's mouth. 

Neil's eyes went wide and he said, "Oliver," and it came out muffled but Olly didn't move his hand.

"This means you can't say anything," Olly said. "I—I don't want to know if you hate it, okay, because I can't bear the thought that you hate it, and also I've never given people the songs that are about them, you're the only one who knows one is about you." He took his hand away from Neil's mouth and Neil held his breath, afraid to say anything. "I was just really happy with it," Olly finished, his shoulders falling. "I wanted you to hear it. I thought you'd be on the plane."

"My flight got cancelled," Neil said. "Olly."

"If you hate it," Olly said.

"Please stop saying that," Neil said, and he grabbed Olly and kissed him until all he could see were stars. "No one's ever written a song about me before," he said, pressing a softer kiss to Olly's temple.

"You're quite inspiring," Olly whispered, running his hands up and down Neil's back.

"This makes me wish I could write songs," Neil whispered back.

"Well, I don't think it's too much to ask you to write me something on the violin," Olly whispered, smiling against Neil's jaw. "You're a musical genius, after all."

Neil laughed and shook his head. "Perhaps," he said, "but don't you think you deserve more than that?"

"I'm not sure how much more I could handle," Olly said, and he leaned back and looked up at Neil, his eyes hopeful. "Please just tell me what you think," he said.

Neil kissed him before he finished his sentence, and Olly laughed against Neil's mouth and said, "I'm serious, this is _serious_." 

"This _is_ serious," Neil said, and he put his hands on Olly's cheeks. "I love every second of it," he said. "I don't have words strong enough to express how much I love it. They all just seem too meaningless when I think of the ones you've put in this song."

"I've been waiting to find you," Olly whispered with tears in his eyes. "That day we met, I knew it was you."

The snow fell all afternoon while they laid together in bed, kissing away the hours with an unfamiliar feeling of timelessness lingering in the air. "D'you want to," Olly said at one point, sliding his hands up Neil's sides under his shirt and smiling shyly at him in quickly fading daylight.

"Mmm, I always want to," Neil said, grinning back, and he let Olly pull his shirt off and bit his lip while Olly kissed his collarbone, down his chest, nipping gently at his nipples. Normally their time together is too quick, and that night, every second had felt like a gift.

Later, his eyes heavy with sleep, Neil ran his hand up and down Olly's back while Olly hummed softly against his throat. Neil fell asleep first, and when he woke up it was in the early hours of the morning, tangled up in the blankets with Olly hugging him tight around the waist. Neil listened to Olly's breathing for ages, deep endless breaths that sounded like a promise for forever. "I always want you to stay," Neil whispered, softer than the snowflakes falling outside the window.

Olly didn't wake up but he hugged him tighter and sighed, and Neil was overwhelmed by what it felt like when he realised he loved Olly with every bit of his heart.

Now, in the taxi, Olly takes Neil's arm and sits very still while the song plays on the speakers. Neil's heart is pounding and his palms feel too warm but he listens to the song for the thousandth time. Maybe the millionth time. Maybe this song is playing in his mind on a neverending loop.

"It's so different from the other things I've written," Olly says softly, and he presses his mouth to Neil's shoulder. "How did you stomach this, did you know this was about you?"

Neil laughs and says, "You told me, 'I wrote a song about you.'"

"Oh god," Olly laughs and presses his forehead to Neil's shoulder. "How succinct."

"It was an email," Neil says, grinning. "I think you were nervous."

"I can't even imagine," Olly says. "I've never told anybody a song is about them before." He lifts his head and looks at Neil with guarded eyes. "You probably knew that."

"I did," Neil says. "Still hits me though, hearing you say it." He takes out his phone and Olly rests his head on Neil's shoulder while Neil types a new tweet that says, _me and olly r in a taxi and shine has come on_.

"You should put lots of that face with hearts for eyes," Olly says softly. He's smiling, but his voice sounds sad. Neil puts five of them, and then he adds _ehehehe_ for good measure and posts it.

The taxi pulls up in front of Olly's building and Olly looks out the window and then back at Neil. "Okay," he says. "I don't think I'll see you again before you leave, so have a safe trip, yeah?"

Neil nods, swallowing hard around that pesky lump in his throat that always makes itself known when he's about to leave Olly for tour. "I always do," he says. "I could call you if you'd like me to."

Olly swallows hard a couple of times and nods, smiling, but his eyes are bright. "Yes, please," he says softly as he opens the door.

"Olls," Neil says, reaching for Olly's wrist. It's always hard, leaving for tour, but knowing that it's hard for Olly even when he doesn't have his memories is absolutely devastating. "Baby."

Olly looks at him and shakes his head. "Did I have any nicknames for you?" he asks softly.

But before Neil can say anything, Olly is kissing him, one hand on Neil's shoulder and the other cupping his cheek. Neil kisses him back without giving it a second thought, and it makes him dizzy. With his eyes closed like this he can pretend that they're in another time, that nothing terrible has ever happened to them and this is just an ordinary, heartbreaking goodbye. Nothing missing, nothing out of place. 

Olly pulls away first, and he bites his lip and winces. "I'm so sorry," he says. "I just."

Neil shakes his head and says, "It's okay, it's okay." His head is spinning and he has no idea what to do.

Olly says, "Have a safe trip, okay?" He kisses his fingertips and presses them to Neil's knuckles, and then he gets out of the car before Neil can say goodbye. Neil gives his own address to the driver and when he looks back towards the door, Olly's already gone inside.

 

  
Neil hasn't had any sleep by the time he arrives in Ibiza, and everything about the setting feels foreign and unfamiliar. It's his turn to do press and Grace asks him if he's sure he's okay doing it. "I can handle a bit of the _press_ , Grace, honestly," he says, trying to keep everything the way it always was, but the minute he sits down with an interviewer he wishes he'd faked sick to get out of it.

They all ask about the band and new music and what they could expect from Clean Bandit today, but those questions all feel rushed in favor of questions about Olly. "How's he doing?" asks someone from MTV News, and Neil finds himself utterly speechless. 

"Don't we have an 'under no circumstances' list or something?" Neil asks when he gets back to the bus. He opens and closes all the cupboards, not sure what he's looking for, while Grace and Jack say nothing. "I'm not doing press in Portugal."

"I asked you if you were sure," Grace says.

"Of course I'm _not_ ," Neil says, turning to her. "Why on earth would I _want_ to do that?"

Jack steps between them when Grace moves to reply, and says, "We'll take press tomorrow, then." He looks at Grace and she shakes her head and walks out of the kitchen. Jack sighs and goes after her.

Neil focuses all of his attention on Elisabeth during the show and goes straight to bed afterwards; he hears Grace and the others come back after he's got the curtain closed, but he pretends to be asleep. He texts Olly and says _hope ur doing alright, miss u_ , but Olly doesn't write back.

When they get to Portugal, Grace pulls him aside and apologises for snapping at him. "I'm worried about you, is all," she says. "I'm just worried about you."

"I'm fine," Neil says, even though he's not.

Grace hugs him then, and he knows she doesn't buy it but she doesn't ask him anything more. He wonders how long he could go like this, fooling everyone into thinking he's fine while inside he feels like he's crumbling into dust.

By the time they get onstage in Portugal, Neil has a throbbing headache and wants to be quite literally anywhere but here. He wears sunglasses and keeps mostly to himself onstage; he misses a couple of his cues, but the crowds scream long and loud, and he wonders if he's really missed anything at all.

Late that night, Neil calls Olly over Facetime from the airport. Olly answers and he's in bed, but he smiles sleepily and says, "Hi there."

"Hi," Neil says. He misses Olly desperately tonight, a unique ache in his chest that seems to present itself in the loneliest of places – in the back of a tour bus at four in the morning or sat alone at the corner of an airport gate. "It's late, I know."

"No, it's alright, I was awake," Olly says. "How were your shows?"

Neil finds himself spilling too much to Olly tonight; the loneliness is too much to bear and Olly feels like home, even if Neil doesn't yet feel like home to Olly. He means to leave out the more painful bits but he tells Olly about the interviews and his fight with Grace and then he says, "All I want is to come home."

"Don't you like touring, though?" Olly asks.

"It's not the same as it used to be," Neil says. "It's all too hard right now." He feels vulnerable and drunk even though he passed on all the alcohol earlier, and now he's regretting that decision quite a bit.

Olly sighs and doesn't say anything and then Neil says, "You kissed me in the taxi the other night."

"Let's talk about this when you come back," Olly says gently. "We should talk about it when you come back."

"You should come with me to Paris," Neil says as the announcement comes that boarding is starting for his flight.

"I don't think that's a good idea, Neil," Olly says. "I…it's not a good idea."

"It scares me that maybe," Neil starts, and he frowns and shakes his head. "Have you wondered if it will ever stop being so scary?"

"Every second," Olly whispers. "Let's talk when you get home, okay?"

"I love you," Neil says. He wishes his voice would be a little steadier. "I'll see you."

Olly is quiet for a moment and then he says, "Have a safe flight." He hangs up first and Neil closes his eyes, trying to collect himself before he's trapped on the plane. He focuses on his breathing and when he feels calm enough to open his eyes, he has a new message from Olly.

 _it scares me so much to say this out loud,_ Olly says, _but i love u too._

 

Neil gets back to his flat in the early hours of the morning, and when he rounds the corner to go inside, he finds Emre sitting on the top step. "Oh," Neil says slowly. "Hello."

"Welcome home," Emre says, but it doesn't sound very welcoming, and he looks upset. "How was _your_ weekend?"

Neil isn't the violent type, but the list of times he's wanted to punch Emre in the face is too long to properly keep track of. Tonight will likely be added to that list. 

"I'm sorry, what?" Neil says. "What exactly have I done this weekend that's wretched enough for you to be on my doorstep at two in the morning?"

Emre stands up and squares his shoulders, frowning at Neil. "He's not slept all weekend," he says, and his voice is a bit raspy like he's not slept all weekend, either. "You can't keep doing this to each other. He's been a complete mess."

"I've spoken with him this weekend, Emre," Neil says. He's exhausted. Absolutely and completely exhausted. "Don't do this right now."

"You've got to stop this," Emre says, nearly pleading with him. "You've got to let him rest."

Neil breathes deeply through his nose and clenches his jaw until his back teeth start to ache. "I'm not doing anything to him," he says, trying to keep his words even, but they come out sounding too harsh.

"I'm just asking you," Emre says evenly, "to try and keep a bit of distance. He's stretched too thin, and he's going to break if we're not careful."

"Emre, _honestly,_ " Neil says, closing his eyes. "Don't do this."

"Do you think this isn't hard for us?" Emre says, but he clenches his jaw and presses his lips together when Neil shakes his head.

"We _all_ care about him," Neil says. "We all want him to get better and we _all_ want him back."

"You're doing too _much_!" Emre is nearly shouting now, and Neil tries with everything he has to think about this rationally; Emre is hurting, too. Emre's lost Olly, too.

The problem, of course, is that Emre hasn't lost Olly the way Neil has lost Olly.

"You can't possibly understand what this is like," Neil says without thinking, and Emre's eyes go dark. "You cannot understand what it's like to lose _everything_ like this. He still _remembers_ you. He still knew your _name_ when he woke up. He didn't even know my _name_."

"It's hard for all of us," Emre says stubbornly. "We're all having a hard time with this, this is hard for _all_ of us."

"But you don't love him the way I do!" Neil shouts back. His voice cracks too many times and his vision is going a bit blurry with the threat of tears. "You _don't_ know what it's like when the person you love most on this _planet_ wakes up and doesn't remember your _name_." He exhales and curls his hands into fists, and Emre shakes his head and steps back.

"I'm just suggesting that maybe you back off for a bit," Emre says quietly. "That's it."

"You need to leave right now," Neil says, just as quietly.

Emre leaves without saying anything else, and Neil goes up to his flat and slams the door. The photo on the mantle is sat too close to the edge and it falls face down onto the hardwood floor. When Neil picks it up, he finds that the glass has cracked, leaving a thin jagged line between his face and Olly's face. _Perfect,_ he thinks as he sets it back on the mantle, broken glass and all.

Maybe this is the way things are destined to work out from here, Neil wonders as he crawls into bed with all his clothes on: broken and cracked without any way to fix it. He sleeps fitfully and dreams of a world where he's surrounded by shards of glass. He glues them all back together one by one, and when he leans back to look at his work, he realises that he's just put together a giant crystal heart; he sighs and it all turns to dust, disappearing on his exhale as if the heart had never existed at all.

 

Neil spends the next few days in a bit of a funk.

It's rotten weather, for starters, and he feels as if he's coming down with something. The flu, maybe, or just a bad case of heartache. Either one is likely. 

Neil gets a text from Olly on the morning of the third day. _hi. i miss u_ , he says.

 _hi,_ Neil writes back. _how r u 2day?_

 _boredddd,_ Olly says. _havnt heard from u in days. evrything ok?_

Neil isn't sure how to answer, but before he can say anything, Olly sends another message. _had it out w/ emre re u. he shouldnt've said anyhting. im sry._

 _ah its ok,_ Neil sends back, and he's surprised that he actually believes that. _its a rough situation 2 b in, u kno?_

Olly is quiet for a long time after that, and Neil hears from him next while he's making a sandwich, hours later. 

_its james bday 2nite_ , he says. _u busy? u shud come._

Neil says, _ah no i don't think im up for it_. He's consumed with guilt for turning Olly down, but the tiniest part of him is wondering if maybe he really believes Emre was right after all. Maybe he does need to keep a bit of distance.

 _come onnnn_ , Olly says. _emre has othr plans. plus i will be there & also if u don't come ill be so sad._ He includes a selfie where he's sticking out his bottom lip with sad puppydog eyes.

And that's how Neil finds himself knocking on Olly's door for James's birthday party later that night.

Olly opens the door with a plastic cup in his hand, and his eyes light up when he sees Neil. 

"You've put on a button-down shirt!" he says. "Hello!"

Olly's hair, Neil notices immediately, is lavender. "You've colored your hair!" Neil says. "It looks lovely!"

"Aah, yes," Olly says, touching the back of his head. "I did do that. Sophie did that. This was Sophie's fault, it's washable. It'll wash out."

"It looks really lovely," Neil says. Olly smiles shyly and looks at his feet, and Neil clears his throat.

Olly gets Neil a drink, and takes him around to say hi to everyone. Most of the guests are James's friends and they've known Olly for ages, and Neil feels a bit out of place.

Neil spends a bit of time talking to Mikey and Sophie. Just as he realises he's lost track of Olly, he feels a hand on his back. "Hiiii," Olly says. 

Neil looks at him and Olly smiles, and Neil can't tell if he's just relaxed or if he's had one too many. 

"Hi," Neil says, and from the corner of his eye he sees Mikey and Sophie exchange a look.

"Can I steal you for a minute?" Olly says. He doesn't wait for an answer before he takes Neil's hand, and Neil follows him blindly as Olly takes him upstairs.

They wind up in Olly's bedroom, and it looks just as it did when Neil had last been here. It feels like a lifetime has passed since Neil had tucked all of Olly's reminders into a box in the back Sophie's closet. 

"So, listen," Olly says as he closes the door. The party suddenly sounds like it's a hundred miles away. "We should probably talk about some things."

Neil realises that Olly's a bit drunker than Neil would like him to be, his words blending together a bit too much. "Olls," Neil says, cautious.

"The stuff Emre said," Olly says, taking a step closer. "I don't…I just missed you, is all. I miss you even though I don't really know you the way I should."

"You can't force this," Neil says softly. "Nothing about this can be forced, baby, it just has to run its course."

"But maybe it never will," Olly says. "Maybe I'll be trapped here forever. What if it never runs its course and this is my life now?"

The repair Neil's been able to do on his heart is quickly coming undone, the ache blossoming bigger and brighter in his chest with every word Olly says. "I feel trapped here, Neil," Olly says shakily. "I feel like I'm in a glass box and I can't get out, but I can still see the life I'm supposed to be living."

"You're not supposed to be anything, baby," Neil says. "You're just supposed to get better."

"I'm tired of waiting, though. I'm tired of being stuck in limbo," Olly says. "I need to start over, we need to just start over."

Neil's head is spinning when Olly takes a couple steps closer, putting tentative hands on Neil's hips. Neil swallows hard and Olly says, "Let's just start over, yeah? Maybe if we do that then you can just forget, too."

"I can't forget, Olly," Neil says softly. "I don't want to forget." He puts his hands on Olly's shoulders and he feels his entire world begin to crash down around them. "Maybe this is all just too much for us. Maybe this is bigger than we are."

Olly looks up at Neil,tears in his eyes, and he says, "I really thought if I could just convince you," and then his bottom lip quivers just a bit and Neil has to look away.

Olly steps back and lets out a little exhale of breath. "Maybe it's time to call it, then," he says, and Neil has an urge to look at a clock to find out the exact moment when his heart had been broken beyond repair.

While he waits for the bus, Neil sends Olly a text that just says, _im so so sorry_.

Olly doesn't reply.

 

There isn't a reply from Olly the next day, or the day after that, or for three more days after that. Neil texts him again on the sixth day and says, _if u need to talk im always always here for u, ill always love u but maybe this is rly whats best for us. maybe this will hurt less in the long run than trying 2 force those memories to come back._

Mikey texts him later that afternoon. _You should give O some time,_ he says. _He's in a rough spot but don't go away forever, ok?_ He adds a few indecipherable emojis but Neil is too exhausted to figure out what he's trying to convey.

 

Four days before he's expected in Jersey, Neil flies to Paris by himself.

Olly's ticket goes unused, and there is an empty seat between Neil and the aisle seat. He listens to Mahler and tries to sleep, but every time he closes his eyes, he pictures Olly sitting beside him and it startles him awake.

The skies are dreary in Paris, and Neil feels like it's perfect.

He spends the days wandering around the city, taking side streets he's unfamiliar with while listening to classical music in his headphones. He takes a selfie and puts it on twitter. _i'm in paris on the street where I used to live it should b called memory lane or something cos I am remembering_ , he says. It's retweeted thirty-seven times in a matter of minutes; it takes two minutes for someone to reply to him about Olly.

Neil turns his phone off.

Later in the evening, he finds himself near Pont des Arts. He crosses over and counts the lampposts until he finds the section of fence where Olly had left a padlock, one he'd bought before leaving London. It was black and he'd scratched _O+N_ into the enamel; Neil had stood back while Olly clicked the lock shut.

It's ironic, Neil thinks, because the city has started removing the locks from the bridge. Their section of the fence is clear with no locks left at all, and Neil wonders if all of these other couples have fallen apart, too.

Before he leaves for the airport, Neil stands at the picture window that overlooks the street. _All of this is Paris,_ he thinks. He imagines where Olly could be right now, if he's on a plane to Jersey, or in bed wishing he could just stay home. Neil wants to stay in Paris, to miss his flight and disappear into the streets, never to be heard from again. 

He could start over here, he thinks. Maybe that would help.

 

As fate would have it, Clean Bandit's bus is parked three spots away from the Years & Years bus in Jersey.

Neil takes the long way around and puts his bags in the back lounge, and then goes to an empty bunk to try and sleep. It's fruitless; his heart is beating too fast with the knowledge that Olly is right here, right near him, and he won't stop by the way he usually does. That part of Neil's life is different now. It's over.

Soundcheck is early in the afternoon; Neil gets up and brushes his teeth at the last possible second before heading out. He's getting a jacket from under the bus when there's a tap on his shoulder.

Olly is the last person he'd expected to see, but Olly is who's standing there when he turns around.

"Hi," Neil blurts out. _Has anything changed?_ he wants to ask. _Are you back yet?_

"Hi," Olly says. He looks like he's been torn apart and then put back together in the wrong order; there are shadows under his eyes and he looks like he's not slept in days. Maybe he hasn't, Neil thinks. Maybe he's been as restless as Neil's been.

Maybe they _should_ start over. Maybe that would be better than the hell of being apart from Olly. Maybe Olly was right.

"What is this?" Olly is holding a photo album, one that Neil remembers packing away in the box he'd given to Sophie the night their lives changed forever. "Sophie gave me this box."

"She shouldn't have done that," Neil says carefully, and he reaches for the book, but Olly pulls it back.

"Why would you just give up on me?" Olly asks. "You loved me."

"That hasn't changed, I didn't give up on you," Neil says. "I still love you. I'll _always_ love you."

"How could you just pack these things away?" Olly asks. His breathing is quickening, and Neil is scared he'll have a panic attack. "What if these were what could've made me remember?" His eyes are wild and Neil wonders for a split second if these things have triggered something, if Olly is close to a breakthrough but he just doesn't know it yet. "How could you just pack these away?"

"I couldn't overwhelm you," Neil says, "the doctors—"

"You wrote me letters, Neil," Olly says, his eyes bright with tears. "There were flowers in that box. Your mum sent me a _birthday_ card. Why wouldn't you at least try to overwhelm me?"

"I tried everything else, Olly!" Neil says, shaking his head. "Don't you know that I tried _everything_ else? Reliving memories didn't trigger it, telling you about it didn't trigger it, nothing's worked and it seems like all it's done is push us further apart. Why would I show you proof of the things you can't remember?"

"I kissed you in the taxi," Olly says. "I tried, too. I did, I'm still trying."

Neil has always hated fighting with Olly. They've had tiffs before, little disagreements that are usually resolved with kisses and apologies, and once they'd gone a whole week without speaking when Olly had told Neil he was being stupid about their plans for the holidays. He hates the way it makes his heart race, and the way he wants to scream at Olly while at the same time wanting to him to make him feel better. He usually relents faster than Olly ever does, simply because he can't bear the weight of unhappiness that settles over them both. This time, though, everything's different. Everything's changed.

"We already called it, Olly," Neil says softly. "There's nothing left." He doesn't believe that, though, and he wonders whether or not Olly believes it, too.

Olly's face goes dark and he shakes his head. "You're full of shit," he says. "You don't write letters like those and then just give up when things get hard."

"I didn't give up," Neil says. "Sometimes you just…"

Olly shakes his head. "I can't do this right now," he says, taking a couple steps back. "I want to kiss you and scream at you all at the same time, I can't look at you anymore."

"Olly," Neil says as Jack appears, stepping off the bus with a bag.

"Ah," Jack says, freezing on the bottom step. "We've just got to get to soundcheck, sorry to interrupt…"

"You're not interrupting anything," Olly says. "I'm leaving." He turns and walks away quickly, and Neil watches to see if he looks back but he never does.

 

  
Neil half-expects to run into Olly again after soundcheck, but he's nowhere to be found, and Neil is quietly thankful. He's still thrumming with adrenaline, and his hands are a bit shaky; he's not seen Olly that upset in ages and he can't help but feel responsible. He feels like one of Olly's terrible exes, one he'll write heartbreaking angry songs about. Neil is going to be one of those guys now. He feels sick.

After they finish, Grace and Luke leave to get food and Neil finds his way to the stage to watch Years & Years. He stands on Mikey's side of the stage and watches from a different spot than he normally does, but Olly notices him halfway through Shine anyway and Neil has to look away when Olly's expression goes dark before he turns back to the crowd.

When Olly sits at the piano for Eyes Shut, Neil turns and walks away. This is it, he figures. This is where it ends. He goes down the steps towards the backstage and hears Olly's voice break when he sings, "Nothing's gonna hurt me with my eyes shut."

 _This is my life now,_ Neil tells himself. _I'm just going to be the guy who walked away from Olly because he couldn't remember me, and he'll never fully understand why._

Neil feels like this is the actual end of the world.

He stays close to Grace, once they've all reunited backstage. Elisabeth rubs the pressure points on his temples and it helps a bit with the tension. Time seems to move slowly and then all of a sudden the crowd is chanting their name and it's time to go on.

Neil takes care to avoid looking towards the wings, because he knows Olly won't be there; instead, he plays the first couple of songs and then takes his in-ears out, focusing on the noise of the crowd to get his ears to start ringing again.

Somehow, Neil manages to keep his focus on the show, until the time comes for Stronger. He tunes his violin even though it doesn't need it, just to train his attention on something other than Olly. Neil replays their first meeting every time he plays this song, and this time it feels particularly excruciating; he's trying to just go through the motions. It's only three minutes. He can get through three minutes.

The opening notes play, as usual. Neil makes sure his fingers are in the right position, as usual. Elisabeth makes eyes at him before she starts singing, as usual.

And then Olly joins them onstage.

Neil is listening for his cue from Elisabeth but it comes from Olly instead, when he sings, "And I think I don't really get it." Neal doesn't miss his cue at all but his eyes snap up to meet Olly's gaze, and something is different.

Neal has seen Olly's eyes a million times and something is definitely different. They look familiar again; they look like they've seen things.

Neil feels like his heart stops beating when Olly saunters over to him, biting the tip of his tongue and grinning with all his teeth. Elisabeth follows, but Neil barely even notices her when Olly begins to dance with him, his back against Neil's chest. Neil feels alive with electricity at the contact with Olly, and when he puts an arm around Olly's shoulder, Olly reaches up and squeezes Neil's hand.

The contact, Neil thinks, is too intimate for the way they've been for the last three weeks. _This feels too right._ He can't stop himself from taking the pieces of this puzzle and thinking, _but what if?_

Olly loses his balance while he's dancing low to the stage, and Neil leans down to help him up. When Olly gets back on his feet and turns to look at Neil, his smile is so bright and familiar that Neil is certain that something's happened while he's been away from Olly. Something has changed.

The song ends while Olly is still smiling at Neil, and from somewhere far away Neil hears Elisabeth say, "Make some noise for Olly!" and the crowd goes wild.

But Olly is fixated on Neil, and he closes the distance between them with open arms. Neil holds his violin and bow in one hand and holds the other arm out for Olly, expecting a hug, but before he can process anything, Olly has his arms around Neil's neck, kissing him onstage in front of a crowd of hundreds of people.

Neil holds him tight around the waist and he lifts Olly up a bit off his toes while he kisses back. It feels so familiar that he's shocked by it. Olly pulls away while the crowd screams and he puts his hand on the side of Neil's neck and leans close to his ear and says, "I remember you."

And then, just as fast as he'd appeared, Olly is gone, flashing a smile and peace signs to the crowd as he dances his way offstage.

They finish the set with Rather Be and somehow Neil manages to take a bow like a professional performer, but the minute they get offstage, he's looking for Olly.

Neil sends him a text that says _where r u????????_

At the same time, he gets a text that says _WHERE R U i need u right now_.

Neil rolls his eyes and says, _set just finishd why am i findng U????_ but just as he taps send, he runs full force into someone and nearly falls over. Neil grabs at the person's arm and the person, of course, is Olly.

"You ran into me like that at the studio, the day we actually met," Olly blurts out. He grabs Neil's arm. " _Neil_."

"Oh my god," Neil says, eyes wide. "No. No."

"I remember you," Olly says, laughing, his eyes bright but with good tears this time, happy tears. "We were doing Shine and I saw you and it was like, they talk about floodgates opening up and it felt like floodgates opened, I said that to you, do you remember?" Olly is breathless, frantic, and Neil is so shocked that he doesn't know what to do. "I _told_ you, I told you this could happen and it happened, I remember you."

"Oh my god," Neil says again. He can't believe this.

"Are you going to be sick?" Olly says, suddenly concerned for Neil's well-being, as if he hasn't just recovered months of memories in the span of a three-minute song. "Do you feel sick?"

"Quite sick, yes," Neil says, and he lets Olly guide him out of the backstage area, away from the people and the closed-in spaces, into the grass behind the stage. 

They both sit down and Olly holds Neil's hands. "Is this better?" Olly asks.

"I should be comforting _you_ ," Neil says, laughing a little. "This is monumental."

"I remember you," Olly whispers, smoothing Neil's hair. "I can't believe I lost this. My whole chest feels like it's going to burst. I'm so sorry, for what I said—"

Neil grabs Olly's face with both hands and kisses him hard, and it feels so familiar, the way it felt onstage but safer now, more secure. This is Olly again, the Olly he knows and loves and wants to grow old with. "Oh my god," Neil whispers, "it's you."

Olly puts his hands on Neil's wrists, pressing their foreheads together and closing his eyes. "You asked me to move in with you," he whispers, his voice thick with tears. "I remember writing Shine with different lyrics and changing it because I didn't want to share every bit of our story." He kisses the bridge of Neil's nose and whispers, "How in the _world_ could I ever forget you?"

Neil is supposed to go back to the hotel that night, but he's sharing a room with Luke, so instead he takes Olly back to the bus. They lock themselves inside and turn off the lights; they sit in the back lounge in the dark, Olly folded into Neil's side on the couch while the thump of festival music beats steady in the distance.

"Maya said to me that perhaps this was meant to happen," Neil says softly, pressing a kiss to the top of Olly's head. "Like it's a challenge, to see if we were strong enough."

"Oh, god," Olly says, and he turns his face against Neil's chest and laughs. "What a horrific challenge, what have we done to deserve that?"

"Hmm," Neil frowns. "I'm not sure."

Olly sighs and puts his arms around Neil's waist. "You feel like home again," Olly whispers, his words getting heavy with sleep. "I didn't realise just how much I missed you." 

Neil kisses him on top of the head, and Olly sighs again and hugs him tighter. "You did, though," Olly says, and he lifts his head and looks at Neil. 

"Every minute," Neil says. He feels as if he's going to wake up any minute and find that this has all been a dream. "I've never missed anyone more than i missed you while you were right here."

"Not fully," Olly whispers, resting his head on Neil's shoulder. "I wasn't completely here."

"Not fully," Neil whispers back. "But you're here now."

Olly nuzzles Neal's jaw and smiles against his skin. "I'm here now," he whispers, and he falls asleep with his face buried in Neil's neck. 

 

When they get home from Jersey, Olly has two days filled with doctor's appointments. He meets with specialists to check his eyesight and his hearing, with a neurologist for three different MRIs, with a psychiatrist and a psychologist, both on the same day. They all seem to be worried about the severity of recovering his memories all at once, while Neil is just thankful that nothing seems to have disappeared forever. Everything is back. Everything is here.

And for a while, everything is okay.

Olly is cleared to go back to a normal schedule a week after they get back from Jersey. They've rescheduled their tour dates for late September when they get back from the States, and his afternoons start to fill up again with rehearsals and interviews. They've put a hold on moving in together, but Olly still stays over a few times a week. His toothbrush is still in the holder.

Neil has a few festivals left before they're done for the year, and he goes into the studio with the band to start work on the new record. Their schedules are both full, but they find time to see each other, falling quickly back into the normal routine

One night at the beginning of August, Neil gets home late from a festival on a beach in Ibiza. He texts Olly as he's getting in bed, _hey baby made it safe luv u talk 2morro?_ , and he's just turned out the light when there's a persistent knocking at his door.

When Neil opens it, Olly is standing there in joggers and a t-shirt with a panicked look on his face. "Olly," Neil says, frowning, and his heart begins to race. "What's wrong?"

"I had a nightmare about you," Olly says, breathless and hoarse. His voice is thick with tears as he reaches for Neil. "You disappeared, and I just—I couldn't—I needed—"

It turns out that Olly has been having nightmares four or five times a week, crippling lucid nightmares where he's frozen in bed while Neil leaves. Sometimes he disappears into thin air, and sometimes he packs a bag, but most of the time Olly will wake up to find that Neil has never been there at all.

Neil's ears feel hot and his head is spinning out of control. Olly is shaking and shivering even though it's too hot to sleep with the windows shut. "Here, come here," Neil says, putting an arm around Olly, and Olly cries so hard that Neil is afraid his bones will shatter like glass.

Neil finds out that Olly has been sleeping at Emre's flat for four days while Mikey and James have been away and Neil has been in Ibiza. "Why didn't you _say_ something?" Neil asks him, afraid to speak too loud.

"Emre's been kind of helping," Olly says. "But he was away tonight, so I thought I'd just go home and try to sleep there, but it didn't work."

It happens again two nights later, when Olly is curled up against Neil's side. Neil wakes up to whimpering at half three in the morning. 

"No," Olly whispers, and he kicks out and catches Neil in the knee. "No, no. No."

Neil is frozen with uncertainty as to what to do; he's heard that he's not supposed to wake someone who's dreaming — or maybe that's sleepwalking? Then Olly lets out a cry that sounds like he's wounded, and Neil shakes Olly's shoulder until he opens his eyes.

Olly looks at him with an unfocused expression at first and then his breathing gets fast and he says, "No, no, not again, please," and when he grabs Neil's arm, his hands are icy cold and they both gasp.

"It's me," Neil says desperately. "Olly, baby, it's just me." He flicks the light on and Olly squints and Neil feels like he's drowning.

"You were leaving again," Olly whispers, pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes. "You kept saying, I'm leaving, I'm leaving and you'll remember me forever, you were so _mean_. I don't know why you have to be so _mean_."

Three days later, Olly starts seeing a therapist twice a week.

Neil spends his days in the studio through the rest of the month, checking his phone for updates as soon as he knows Olly is out of his sessions. He's dying to know what happens, but Olly isn't as open with this as Neil thought he would be. 

And then in September, Olly starts seeing a therapist three days a week.

Neil finishes recording early one day, and goes to meet Olly at his therapist's office. When Olly comes out, Neil's there waiting on a bench with a cup of Olly's favourite tea and a bright bouquet of zinnias. Olly notices Neil straight away, beaming as he walks over. 

"Hey," Olly says, smiling and pushing up his sunglasses.

It's only when he gets close that Neil can see how exhausted he looks. There are dark shadows blooming under his eyes, and a weariness to his stature that Neil hasn't seen in ages. "Hi," Neil says, pretending he doesn't notice.

Olly puts a hand on the side of Neil's neck and kisses him, then sits down next to him on the bench. "You didn't have to come all the way down here, aren't you busy?"

"Got out early," Neil says. "Thought I'd come down and see you."

Olly curls his hands around the tea and takes a sip. "I'm glad, I missed you." His voice is softer lately, and Neil watches him without knowing what to do. He wants to ask how things are going, if they've made any progress, if his therapist is telling him to end things with Neil before he causes irreparable damage.

Instead he puts his hand on Olly's knee and says, "I've missed you, too."

That night, Olly wakes him up with an elbow to the face, thrashing in his sleep as if he's being tied down. He wakes up gasping and Neil tries to pull him close, but Olly pushes him away and sits on the edge of the bed, hunched over with his back to Neal while he tries to catch his breath. 

Neil sits up and moves over next to him, and he rubs Olly's back, and Olly presses the heels of his hands to his eyes while he cries. Olly won't tell him about this dream but he goes out and sleeps on the sofa the rest of the night, and Neil stays in bed but doesn't fall back to sleep. 

Neil studies his reflection in the mirror the next day. There's no bruising or even any redness, but when he presses two fingers to his cheekbone it aches like a bruise is hidden there, underneath the skin and invisible. There's a metaphor in there somewhere but he's far too tired to pick it out.

At the studio, Neil and Jack spend hours mixing beats and strings together until they've started to build the backbone of a new song. It's haunting and maudlin, but Neil listens back to what they've put together and feels strangely comforted.

"Maybe instead of vocals there could be whispering," Neil says thoughtfully over lunch. "Sort of like, whispering nonsense. Like a ghost or something."

"Where's this inspiration coming from?" Jack asks him. "This all sounds a bit sinister."

"Life, you know," Neil says, shuffling his salad around his plate. "Just life."

Neil doesn't play the song for Olly, but Grace thinks it's brilliant. Neil imagines playing it live, and just the thought of it is too much.

Olly comes by in the evening the next day, and he looks more like himself than Neil has seen in recent weeks. 

They cook dinner together, and Olly laughs at all of Neil's stupid jokes, and then they get into a fairly heated discussion about politics. Olly rolls his eyes a lot, but Neil knows they agree on basically all of these points anyway, and he suspects that Olly's just trying to get him going.

Afterwards, they sit out in the garden in the hammock and Olly rests his head on Neil's shoulder. Neil is about to ask if Olly's been writing any new music when Olly says, "I'd like it if you came to therapy with me next week."

Neil doesn't say anything at first, and then Olly lifts his head and looks at him. "What're you thinking?" Olly asks softly, pressing his thumb to Neil's chin.

"Is that something we should be doing together?" Neil asks.

"It's something I think we should do together," Olly says, his voice soft but firm. "I think we need to do that together."

Olly tells him that his therapist thinks they've reached an impasse in their relationship, that they're treading water until a wave comes in to move them both along. "She used that metaphor, a wave," Olly says softly, pressing his palm flat over Neil's heart. "She thinks we're at risk for drifting separately out to sea." His head is settled under Neil's chin and he shifts a bit. Neil curls his hand around Olly's arm while his heart begins to race. "She says I'm worried I'm going to lose you," Olly whispers. " _I'm_ worried I'm going to lose you."

Neil agrees to go to therapy, and he's nervous in the days leading up to it. As he'd feared, their first session together turns out to be a disaster, and it ends with both of them near tears. 

Olly winds up shouting at Neil about the box of memories he'd given to Sophie, and the session ends with Olly telling Neil, "You were going to give up on us because this was just the way things were going to be, you were ready to just give up." He has tears in his eyes, but his voice is strong. "I couldn't help what happened, I couldn't _help_ it and you were going to give up." 

Olly doesn't break down, so Neil doesn't, either.

When they leave, Olly goes straight to the bus and Neil stops off and cries in the toilet by himself.

Olly is already at the flat when Neil gets there, and they don't say anything to each other for hours. Later, Olly is sat on the sofa with the telly on, and Neil stands in the doorway for an eternity until Olly says, "You can come sit, if you'd like." The edge is gone from his voice and he's curled up on himself, smaller and more fragile than Neil remembers him being.

Neil sits beside him and they exist this way for nearly ten full minutes. Olly hugs his knees to his chest and Neil stares at the telly without seeing what's on the screen. When an advert comes on, he looks over at Olly and says, "I was never going to be able to let you go."

Olly closes his eyes. For a long time he doesn't say anything, and then he says, "But you left." He opens his eyes and looks over at Neil. "You're the best thing that's ever happened to me and you let me fall in love with you again and then you were ready to give up when I couldn't remember." A tear slides down his cheek and he doesn't wipe it away. "I never had dreams before I met you. I _never_ had nightmares about the ones who didn't matter."

Olly goes to bed early, by himself, and once Neil hears the bedroom door click shut, he calls his mum. "I don't know how to do this," he says softly once he's told her about their day. "I don't know that I deserve another chance."

"The easy parts are the reward, Neil," she says, in that soothing way she's always had. "Nothing is easy all the time. Nothing is hard all the time. You weather the storm so you can spend those precious moments together in the sun."

The next morning, Neil wakes up with a renewed determination to keep going.

They have three more sessions before Olly goes to the States, and by the end of the last one, they're both laughing, which Neil thinks is a marked improvement. They go out to dinner together that night and Neil buys an expensive rose for Olly from a cart on the street. "Will you accept this rose?" he asks in a terrible American accent.

Olly laughs so loud it echoes off the buildings. "D'you think any of them have ever said no?"

Neil goes to the airport with Olly the next morning and stands back, bleary-eyed, while Olly checks in and walks with him to just before the restricted area. 

"I'll call when we land," Olly says, sounding a bit choked up. He laughs and it sounds strangled. "I _hate_ this bit, this is literally the worst part."

"Did I ever tell you I cried in the toilet at the airport in Florida?" Neil says as he pulls Olly into a hug.

Olly laughs again but it turns into a shaky sigh, and he kisses Neil's chin. "That doesn't surprise me," he says. "Not from you."

They kiss goodbye – just once, per Olly's rules, only one kiss goodbye when they leave for tour – and Olly calls him when they land in Toronto, and just like that they're in the familiar push-pull of tour life. 

Neil doesn't fly out for a whirlwind trip this time because their therapist says they need to try and practice typical behavior. So he calls Olly every afternoon, and Olly calls after shows, and they survive. 

Clean Bandit have a few days off after a show in Vegas while Years & Years are in San Francisco, so Neil flies in with them to LAX, and he takes a car to San Francisco while the others go on to Hollywood.

He and Olly go out to a club after the show and Olly dances with his hands on Neil's waist, kisses him in a sea of glowsticks and dance music.

They stay at a boutique hotel in West Hollywood and Neil takes Olly's clothes off, one piece at a time, frustratingly slowly, to the point where Olly is whimpering and growling at him. The wall behind the bed is painted with stars and Neil fucks Olly and feels like he's flying; Olly grabs fistfuls of the sheets when Neil whispers, "Don't touch, don't touch." He arches his back and when he comes he moans Neil's name, and it sounds like a goddamn symphony.

Afterwards, Neil spoons up behind him, his arm loose around Olly's waist. Olly links their fingers together and says softly, "I think we're going to be okay."

For the first time in ages, Neil finally thinks Olly is right.

They go their separate ways again the next morning – Olly has a show that night in San Diego and Neil has one tomorrow at the Hollywood Bowl. Olly kisses him goodbye and he says, "I'll see you in London," and then he breaks his own rule by kissing Neil goodbye again.

"Ohhh, you're a rebel," Neil says, hugging Olly tight.

"You don't wanna get mixed up with a guy like me," Olly says in a nasally voice. Neil groans.

When Olly steps back, he's laughing. "I'll see you in London," he says again. "Be safe. No crying in toilets." Olly's joking, Neil knows that, but his eyes are shining and Neil wonders if Olly will be the one crying in the toilet this time.

"No promises," Neil says, and he grabs Olly and kisses him again.

"Heyyy," Olly says, but he kisses back.

"Third time's the charm," Neil says. "You know."

Neil is done touring at the start of October and then he's home for a solid month. Olly comes back a week later, but he's traveling around the UK, so Neil only sees him every few days. He spends time with Rupert and Maya, with Emma, with friends he rarely sees. They've all got babies and they're all getting married, and Neil can't understand where the time's gone.

 _aahhh can u believ it_ , Olly texts him on the morning of October 12. _its almost been a whole entire YEAR_.

Neil tells Olly he isn't sure he'll make the show at Brixton after all; he's got a gig DJing in Yorkshire that night and he's already cancelled it once so he can't get out of it. "I'll see what I can do," he keeps telling Olly, but it's not looking good.

Neil doesn't have a gig that night. He'd never have agreed to a gig that night.

Neil texts Olly that afternoon and says, _baby i love u, so sorry i cant make it_ with about a dozen crying faces, pixelated tears streaming down their cheeks. And then he gets the train to Brixton.

It's already crowded when he gets there. Emre's put his name on the list with security so he gets backstage no problem, and manages to hide out until the show starts. Olly is in rare form, dancing in a way that's almost hypnotizing. Neil takes a picture from his spot at the side of the stage and texts it to him midshow, with a message that says _i see u_.

When they come offstage for the break before the encore, Olly is breathless and smiling, his eyes bright in a way that Neil hasn't seen since the spring. He grabs a towel from one of the crew members and doesn't see Neil straight away, but Emre does and grins. "How's it going?" he says, nodding at Neil, and Olly glances over and then away.

And then he gasps and looks back and says, "Oh my _god_ , you _absolute_ shit!"

Neil laughs and Olly throws himself at Neil, hugging him around the neck. "You said you had a gig!" he says, peppering him with kisses. "You're a liar, I _knew_ it. I knew it!"

Emre and Mikey nearly drag him back onstage; Olly immediately asks the crowd, "Who here has been in love?" before he points offstage to Neil and then presses his hands to his heart. "I have," Olly says, and the crowd cheers.

After the show, Olly brings Neil to the afterparty. Neil drinks fancy cocktails and stands by while Olly mingles with reviewers and industry suits, and then just before midnight Neil finds a moment to take Olly outside.

It's convenient, really, that they're so close to the venue. It's convenient that one of Neil's mates is one of the security guards there. It's convenient that they're able to get back inside after everything's been closed down.

Olly's eyes are clear and bright when they get into the theatre, and the room feels rich and alive with memories. He looks like he remembers them all now, a little overwhelmed, and Neil says, "This has been a crazy fucking year."

"I can't believe you fooled me tonight," Olly says, beaming. He walks over to the railing near the stage and leans on it; the stage lights are on and this feels like a dream.

"Like I'd miss our first anniversary, you're mad," Neil says. He stands next to Olly and looks up at the stage.

"It looks so big from down here," Olly says softly. "It all looks so big."

Neil is quiet for a long time, his stomach swirling at the thought of all they've been through. It's been a crazy fucking year.

"It's only October, though," Olly says. "Imagine how much crazier it could get, we've still got a couple of months." He smiles at Neil and the lights catch the blond in his hair. "I mean, we could probably top everything somehow, right?"

Somehow, Neil thinks, he's sure of that, and his hands are only shaking a little bit when he takes the ring out of his pocket.

He hasn't even gotten on one knee when Olly freezes, his eyes darting down to Neil's hands and then back up to his face. "You did not," he breathes.

Neil cups Olly's face with both hands and kisses him softly, but he's not sure who he's trying to calm more, himself or Olly. He swallows hard and takes a step back, and Olly claps both hands over his mouth.

"You are not," Olly says, his words muffled, and Neil can't help but laugh.

"You're _ruining_ it and I've not even started yet," Neil says. "Stop talking so I can get through this."

His hands are shaking and he's afraid he'll drop the ring; Olly keeps one hand over his mouth and grabs the railing with the other, staring at Neil with big eyes. Neil takes a deep breath and says, "Olly."

Olly's eyes fill with tears and then Neil's eyes fill with tears, and he realizes that any plan he had for this moment is over because whatever it was he'd planned to say has just flown out of his head, leaving nothing but blank space in its wake. 

"This is where I told you I'd fallen in love with you," Neil says quietly. "Right here."

Olly takes his hand away from his mouth and says, "Actually, I think it was the other railing." He laughs and Neil rolls his eyes.

"Are you finished?" Neil says. "You're unbelievable, shall I just hand you the ring and you can take care of this bit, then?"

"Nooo," Olly says, and he's giggling uncontrollably. "No! You do it. Go, go."

Neil sighs for effect and then he drops the act and takes Olly's hand. "I told you I'd fallen in love with you, right here or in this general vicinity."

"Yes," Olly says. "Yes, good."

Neil looks down at their hands, and he swallows hard around the lump in his throat. "I always gave too much of myself," he says, and he looks back up at Olly. Olly isn't smiling anymore, just watching Neil and holding his breath. "I was so sure I'd given everything I had, until I met you." Neil's vision goes blurry and he clears his throat, and Olly reaches up and thumbs a tear away from Neil's cheek. "I meant it that night when I said you were worth it."

"Stooop," Olly whispers, and he lets go of Neil's hand and wipes his own eyes. "Oh my god, you're the worst."

Neil laughs and says, "Okay, well, you've got to brace yourself then, because I have to do this bit next," and he gets down on one knee while Olly covers his face with both hands and laughs at the same time he's crying. "Oliver Alexander Thornton," Neil says in as dramatic a voice as he can muster.

Olly laughs and wipes his eyes, shaking his head before he looks at Neil, his eyes filled with nothing but love. He bites his lip and smiles, and Neil takes his hand. 

"I can't believe you're doing this _here_ ," Olly says.

"It's romantic," Neil counters, and he holds up the ring. It's silver, inlaid with two small white stones, and it catches the light and sparkles like Neil had planned it that way. "Olly," Neal says, squeezing his hand.

"You don't have to ask," Olly whispers.

"It's part of the rules," Neil whispers back. "I have to ask."

"I know, but you know you don't _have_ to ask." Olly sighs and squeezes his hand. " _Neil_."

"Let's just make it official, then," Neil says. "Please."

"Okay, okay," Olly says. "Carry on."

Neil makes a show of clearing his throat and he looks at Olly and says, "I want to grow old with you. I want to marry you in a castle."

"Can we wear wellies?" Olly asks, eyes bright with tears.

"If that's what it takes," Neil says. He smiles and holds up the ring. "Will you marry me in a castle?"

Olly laughs and says, "Yes, yes, yes," and he drops down to his knees and cups Neil's face in both hands. "It's been yes since the minute I met you, you know that."

Neil is weak with relief when he puts the ring on Olly's finger, and Olly sucks in a breath; both of them are shaking but Neil has never felt so sure of anything in his life. 

"I'm making this promise to you," he whispers, and Olly kisses him.

Olly hugs him around the neck and kisses his temple and whispers, "I know."

They call Olly's mum first, on Facetime, and when Olly holds up his hand, she immediately starts to cry. Then they call Neil's mum and dad and Maya. Neil takes a picture of Olly holding up his hand with his eyes wide with surprise and captions it, _attention evryone, i liked it so i put a ring on it_ and posts it to his private instagram.

They'll tell everyone else later, Neil figures.

They have a suite at a hotel that night, but they don't get to bed until it's nearly morning. They kiss lazily until the sun starts to lighten the sky, and then Olly falls asleep, curled up against Neil's side with his head on Neil's chest.

As the sun gets slowly brighter, Neil finds himself too overwhelmed to sleep; he feels monumentally lucky, being here with Olly after he's unlocked his half of their life together, making plans to spend the whole rest of their lives together. Every exhale of Olly's breath hits Neil's skin like the hammers of a grand piano, beautiful music sending vibrations up and down his spine until he feels like he's covered in music notes.

When he starts to drift off to sleep, Neil realises that he finally feels complete again, like his broken parts have melded together after these months of agony and his heart is once again whole.


End file.
